Mens Rea
by SylvieT
Summary: This is my entry to the CSI Forever Online June 2014 Fanfiction challenge: Fix GSR. There are strict rules though, listed inside. Set in April of season 14. No spoilers for the season itself. All major characters involved.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This is my entry to the CSI Forever Online June 2014 Fanfiction challenge: **Fix GSR.**

I've never done one of these, or written a story in this style before. It's different, and very daunting. It's my chance to be a CSI writer – kind of. I'm basically writing a 45-minute CSI episode with scenes as they would be filmed instead of chapters, but not in script form. So each chapter/scene will be short and snappy CSI-style, and so will the GSR.

I hope I can pull it off and that you'll like it. The rules of the challenge are intricate and very limiting and listed below. I hope not to break (m)any.

Rules  
The subject of the story is Fixing GSR. _The story must resolve the present relationship between Grissom & Sara in a HAPPY WAY._

The story  
- _Needs GSR to be restored in a credible fashion  
- Needs to be strictly canon (what's aired since Forget Me Not)  
- Cannot be AU (dream sequences, time displacement, etc.)_  
_- Should include regular elements of a crime mystery that is solved in this piece  
-Think of it as a CSI episode.  
_  
Characters  
_- Grissom __cannot__ physically appear in this story or exchange dialogue with anyone. He may appear in letter form (email, text, handwritten letter.) We have to assume Billy Petersen is not coming back.  
- Grissom may appear in past (3rd person) conversations and interactions ONLY.  
- Any regular character may be used (except Warrick or any character that has died.)  
- New characters may be used_

Style  
_- It may be written as a normal story  
- It may be written as a television screenplay (teleplay) if you really want a challenge!_

(NOTE: If written as a teleplay, Sara may have a 1-sided phone conversation with Grissom but his responses won't be heard.)

Length  
_- The story may __not__ exceed 40 pages (the standard length of an average CSI script)  
- No word limit, just chapters._

_The due date is the start of season 15 – the last Sunday in September 2014._

* * *

**Mens Rea**

* * *

**********Fade in.**_  
_**OPENING SCENE:**

Aerial shot of Beaumont federal correctional complex in the heart of Jefferson County, Eastern Texas, that narrows in on its medium security facility. It's barely nine am, but the sun is already high in the sky, its heat intense despite the early hour.

Camera zooms in. Inmates wearing khaki uniforms are in the yard, exercising. Armed guards patrol the yard, stop to talk and joke with some of the men. A basket-ball game is in full swing, the players' voices, loud, commanding as they give directions. Some inmates are lifting weights. Others are playing chess or cards on concrete tables. One is reading nearby. A group of five are talking in a corner, looking furtive. A couple more are trying to pick a fight. The guards intervene. A small crowd gathers.

Camera zooms right in, past the fight, to two men boxing near the basket-ball court, not aware – or caring – of the fracas. The first man, facing the camera, is young, mid-to-late twenties, Hispanic. His head is shaven under a folded bandanna, his face pockmarked and dripping with sweat. Tattoos are visible on his arms as he holds the punching bag to him while a second man is giving it his all. Short, sharp regular punches. He keeps his back to the camera and his head down. His hair is white, cropped very short. His arm and shoulder muscles are strong, well defined. No words are spoken between the two men.

Off camera, footsteps crunch softly on the concrete, gradually coming closer to the two men. A guard comes into the frame. The young Hispanic looks up, nods at the guard and releases his grip on the punching bag. He reaches for a towel, wipes his face on it. The second man keeps punching a little longer, then slows down and breathing heavily takes the towel his companion is holding out – the same one he's just used himself – and wipes his face on it too.

He's about to turn when the action cuts to inside the building.

There in the air-conditioned waiting room, Sara is sitting on a hard plastic chair, waiting. The room is full of women of all ages, colour and background. Mothers, sisters, daughters, wives, girlfriends, like her sitting, or standing, restless, lifeless, or chatting animatedly. Aside from the armed guard standing to attention near the door, there isn't a man in sight, which is odd really, all things considered. Where are the fathers, brothers and sons, one can't help wondering? Don't they care too?

The air-conditioning is set too low, and Sara represses a shiver, wishes she'd kept her jacket with her. Her face is drawn, tired-looking, as if she hasn't had a good night's sleep in a long time. She hasn't. She looks tense and uneasy, petrified at what she's going to find on the other side of the wall, on the other side of the Plexiglas screen.

She still doesn't know if this is a wasted trip, or if he'll agree to see her. She asked that he wasn't told she was coming, wasn't sure she _would_ be coming, not even after she'd parked the rental in the visitors' parking lot a mere half-hour ago. Is she making a huge mistake? She can just get up, turn around and walk away. Walk away. Just like he did.

After all, she's not supposed to know, is she?

If he knew she was coming he would put a stop to it and deny her the visit. She isn't on his list of approved visitors; no one is. As it is, she had to pull strings to organise the visit without his consent. Well, _Brass_ pulled a few for her, but that's the least he could do in the circumstance. His betrayal still tastes bitter in her mouth. They haven't parted on good terms.

He could still refuse to see her if he so chooses. His selfishness – selflessness Brass called it – riles her. Anger flares deep inside her, and she bites at her bottom lip, shifts uncomfortably in her chair. She is so angry, all of the time. She wipes a tear from her eye, then wipes her face and casts a nervous glance around the room. No one is paying her the slightest attention.

It took a goddamn fingerprint, a partial of his thumb for her to find out the truth and locate him. How could she not have known? How could she not have guessed? How could he keep it from her like that? Doesn't he care anymore? Thirteen months and eighteen days without so much as a word, a note, a call. He could have been dead, and she wouldn't have known. All that time wasted, unaware and unsuspecting, wondering if she did something, questioning herself and their love, and hurting all the while.

She didn't do anything wrong, he did, and now he is paying for it.

No. They're both paying for it.

**Fade to black.**


	2. Chapter 2

******************Three weeks previously…**

**************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 01:**

"Baby you're much too fast,_  
_Little Red Corvette_  
_You need a love that's going to last."

_Little Red Corvette_ by Prince is playing softly in the background. Daylight is beginning to fade. Nick walks past the back of an open ambulance and glances inside at a little girl being tended to by paramedics. She looks about eight years old. She isn't crying. She is sitting on the stretcher, still and silent and staring forward, seemingly unhurt – well, physically anyway. The coroner's van is nearby, LVPD cruisers with their lights flashing too.

A small crowd has gathered behind the crime scene tape. Nick winds his way in, his gaze falling on the crash site and the fifth generation black Chevrolet Corvette Coupe – a late nineties model if he was to hazard a guess. The car rests astride the sidewalk at a forty-five-degree angle to the road with its front-end wrapped around a lamppost.

Nick looks for skid marks on the road, finds them. He can see it happening in his mind's eye; the car rounds the corner too fast, the driver loses control, brakes sharply and the car mounts the sidewalk, hitting the pedestrian and finishing its course against the street light.

David and his assistant are crouching on the side of the car away from him, presumably where the body lies inert. He doesn't need to see it to know what David is looking at. Better him, than me, he thinks, then gives his head a shake and slips under the tape. Detective Vartann is waiting there, his black book and pen in hand. Nick joins his side. The music fades.

"The car's a write-off. Such a waste."

Nick gives his law-enforcement colleague a short sideways glance. He knows Vartann doesn't mean to sound crass but the comment is in bad taste. He sets his field kit down, slips on a pair of black gloves. "What have we got?"

"Hit and run with a twist. One fatality, white female, early thirties?" Vartann nods towards the victim's location. "That's all I have for now. We haven't found a purse, and David's checking the body for ID."

"And the little girl?"

"The daughter – assuming that's who she is – came out of it unscathed. The medics found her near the body. She's not talking."

Nick nods, then ducks his head to look inside the car through the driver's open door. The deployed airbag is deflated, hanging out of the steering wheel. There could be trace on it, or epithelial if the airbag blew up in the driver's face. The rest of the cabin's intact. No trace of blood or anything that would indicate injury to the driver or possible passengers. The inward curve of the cracked and bloody windshield indicates the victim's point of impact.

"The bastard was wearing his seatbelt," Nick says, showing his frustration. "Any witnesses?"

"Not as yet, but we're asking."

Nick straightens up and turns to Vartann. "Who called it in?"

"The liquor store clerk across the street. He heard the crash, came out of his store, saw the guy fleeing the scene."

"One guy?"

Vartann nods, opens his black book. "Medium height, medium build. Dark clothing, baseball hat, looked a bit dazed. The clerk never saw his face."

Nick nods, then looks up and all around them.

"No traffic cameras anywhere along this street," Vartann says. "I checked."

Nick points to the interior of the Corvette. "There's a sports bag on the passenger seat. You looked at it yet?"

"No. I was waiting for you guys to show."

Nick opens his kit, gets his camera out and lines up a few shots of the car's interior.

"RO is one…" Vartann consults his black book as Nick clicks away, "Rodney Carver, 47, domiciled in North Vegas. We're checking it out."

Nick pauses, motions at the car. "It's probably stolen."

"Isn't reported as such if it is," Vartann argues. "And the keys _are_ in the ignition."

Nick's brow rises, and he checks for himself, takes photographic evidence of it.

"You're working solo tonight?"

Nick shakes his head. "Finn's on her way over."

"Sanders keeping a low profile?" There's mischief in Vartann's tone.

Nick smiles. "Man, those rumours aren't true, and you know it." He waves a friendly finger at Vartann. "So don't go round spreading them."

Vartann gives a quiet chuckle. "You CSIs always stick together."

"Always," Nick says with an easy smile, and both refocus on the scene in front of them. "Greg's processing the convenience store robbery on the corner of South Decatur and Pennwood."

Vartann's nod is thoughtful. "You know, that's only a few blocks away from here."

"Not a good place to be tonight."

Vartann jerks his head toward David, and both men walk round the car to the coroner. Camera in hand, Nick dips and cranes his head, checking all over the front of the car for more pertinent evidence, and stops to take a few more shots of the crumpled car.

"David," Nick says in greeting.

Clipboard in hand, David looks up and over his shoulder. He's looking grave. "Hey. The victim suffered severe head trauma, two broken legs in multiple places, broken ribs - all consistent with being hit by the car. And that's only what I can see. She died instantly."

Nick nods his head. His expression mirrors that of the assistant coroner.

Vartann looks like he's heard it before. "ID?"

David shakes his head. "How's the little girl?"

"Not talking."

With a sigh, Nick glances at the ambulance, thinking that he or Finn would need to process the girl and maybe question her. Maybe she had seen the driver. He takes a few steps back and begins photographing the body so that David can take it back to the morgue. He doesn't think the autopsy will aid in the investigation itself, but who knows what it might uncover?

"Sir?"

Nick, Vartann and David all turn at the uniformed officer's call. He's standing twenty yards or so down the sidewalk near a dumpster. He hooks his thumb over his shoulder.

"I think I've found the lady's purse," the officer says.

"Leave it where it is," Nick calls back as he and Vartann make their way over. Nick takes a photo of a green leather purse lying on the concrete pavement partially hidden from sight. The purse's chain link strap is snapped. He picks up the purse, opens it and finds a wallet which he opens. "We got a driver's licence. Diana Vasquez, 37. Lives in Vegas." He turns the licence toward Vartann. "The picture's a match."

Vartann nods in agreement, takes the wallet and writes down the name and address of the victim in his black book. He will need to notify next-of-kin and Nick doesn't envy him the job.

"You going to take a look inside that sports bag, or shall I?" Vartann asks impatiently as he hands the licence back and pockets his black book.

Nick nods, replaces the wallet back in the purse and the purse where he found it so he can bag and tag it later. They walk back to the car, and Nick carefully opens the passenger side door before taking a shot of the bag in situ. There is a name tag on the bag, but no card inside it and no name. The strap of the bag is snagged on the seat side lever and Nick eases it off before slowly unzipping the bag, revealing its content. He and Vartann share a look, a wry smile and a disbelieving shake of the head.

"Dumbass," Vartann says, echoing Nick's thoughts exactly.

******************Fade to black.************_  
_************************End of teaser.**_  
_******Roll title credits.**


	3. Chapter 3

******************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 02:**

DB takes his eyes off the I-15 and looks over at Sara riding shotgun. She's looking away at the passing scenery but he knows she's not seeing any of it. Her downcast expression gives her away every time. He sighs, turns his attention back to the dark and empty road ahead. Something's not right with her, and it worries him. She goes through the motions every day, still does exemplary work at CSI, but the spark's gone.

When did it happen, he wonders? When is it that the two of them stopped talking, stopped confiding in each other? How long since she's asked about Barbara? Well, he knows how long it's been since he's not asked about Grissom – the Basderic debacle a little over a year ago. Is that when it all started? With the breakup of her marriage? Can it really be that long? Does she begrudge him the fact that his marriage survived the rough times when hers didn't?

Traffic is sparse at this time of night. DB casts a glance in the rearview mirror, notices the skyglow of night time Vegas receding in the far distance, then looks over at Sara again. She must have felt his eyes on her because she turns suddenly and flashes him a quick smile, which he returns warmly. Maybe she's just tired, he thinks. She has been working a lot lately.

"How long is it since you've had any time off?" he asks, aiming to sound light and casual. "Proper time off, I mean. Like gone on a vacation."

"Why?"

"You look a little tired, that's all." This time he can't keep the concern from his voice.

Sara turns back to the road, doesn't answer straightaway. "January," she says at last. "I took my mother to see the Grand Canyon."

DB's lips twist in a wry smile; he's going to have to try harder. He returns his eyes to the road. Their brief was short; female body found partially buried in a ditch off the I-15 near the town of Jean, sixty miles south of Vegas. All too soon Sara points at the red and blue lights flashing in the distance and announcing their crime scene. DB slows down, then stops and parks up on the dirt roadside a little ways away. He can always move the truck later if he needs to.

Two highway patrol cruisers are parked across the nearside lane of the carriageway twenty yards apart, diverting traffic away from the close vicinity of the scene. Aside from the lights from the vehicles it is pitch dark out there, and the wind is bitterly cold. DB represses a shiver, zips up his jacket over his coveralls. Brass joins them as they're retrieving their kits and some overhead lights from the back of the truck.

"I don't have much for you," Brass says, as he takes a portable halogen floodlight from Sara. He's wearing his long coat over his suit, the collar up, and is holding a flashlight. "The body's lying in the ditch in a shallow grave. We think it's female on account of its small size and long hair. Aside from the state trooper that found her, no one's been near. Well, that I know of."

DB nods, glances at Sara. She's busying herself with her jacket. They make their way over on the tarmacked road so as not to disturb the dirt ground and possible tyre tracks. Crime scene tape affixed onto metal rods flutters in the wind.

"Highway patrolman was taking a leak when he saw a foot," Brass says as they walk. "He…cut his visit short, retraced his steps exactly and called it in." He points to a metal rod all on its own just inside the cordoned off area. "He marked the spot."

DB and Sara share a look. "Thoughtful of him," Sara says.

"The body's a couple of meters over to the left."

Sara shines her light over to where Brass is indicating, and then all around them. "The ground's all compacted," she says, "All that rain we've had in the last few days has probably washed away whatever trace the perp might have left behind."

DB nods; he'd noticed the same thing. "You set up the lights," he says, dumping his load, "while I go fetch the rest of what we need."

Sara nods, sets to work. Once the lights are rigged up, they scan the ground for physical evidence – find none – take many shots of the scene, while working their way in toward the body. Brass watches for a moment, then retreats to the comfort of his cruiser to make a few calls.

The body when they get to it lies at a bottom of a small ditch. Brass is right, from its slightly raised shape in the mud you can tell the body is small, and DB fears that it is one of a teen rather than a grown-up woman. The two legs are partially uncovered, the back of them facing upward. The feet are small, crusted with mud.

"Should we wait for the coroner before we start digging?" Sara asks.

"Phillips is caught up with Nick's hit and run victim," Brass replies out of nowhere, and DB turns toward him with a start.

"Jesus, Jim, don't do this to me."

Sara cracks a smile, and she and Brass share an amused look. DB shakes his head, feigns annoyance.

Hands in coat pocket, Brass shrugs. "I just spoke with him. He'll be here as soon as he can."

"I think we make a start," DB says in answer to Sara's initial question, "and we keep everything. The body's not in that deep. We'll sift through the mud back at the lab. The light's not good enough to do it here, and I don't want to miss a thing."

"Yeah, and it's cold," Brass adds.

"That too," DB agrees.

Newton Faulkner's _Dream Catch Me_ is playing softly in the background. DB and Sara mark out an eight by four foot rectangle around the body and dig up the soil one and a half foot deep which they bag. Their task is grim and slow, conducted diligently and mostly in silence. The soil below the harder surface crust is soft and moist, easy to dig into. The body when they eventually get to it is cool, slightly damp and well preserved.

When David finally arrives, DB and Sara have completely uncovered the body. The girl, because now they're sure the body is female, is wearing a dress which has ridden up to her waist, and panties. She lies face down in the mud, long hair coated to the sides of her face and down her back. No coat or jacket, shoes or visible signs of injury. The music fades.

"Sorry, I'm late," David says, crouching down on the opposite side from where Sara and DB are.

"It's okay," Sara says and gives him a soft smile, which David returns. "We've only just finished."

David nods, scans his eyes over the grave. "She's been here a while," he states softly, and both Sara and DB agree with a nod. "But the body's very well preserved." He frowns, looks up at Sara. "There doesn't seem to be any insect activity."

Sara nods. "Which is odd, I know," she says, and David smiles.

"Shall we?" DB asks, indicating he wants to turn the body.

Brass ambles back over and watches from the side lines. Carefully they turn the body over, and David gently wipes dirt off the girl's face. "She's only young," he says, and begins checking the body for cause of death.

Sara leans forward, then reaches over and wipes her gloved fingers over the victim's neck, revealing a chain and small crucifix pendant. She stares at it a while, her mouth twisted, then stands up with a shake of the head and walks away.

"You okay?" DB calls.

Sara turns, nods her head. "I just need to stretch. I'm going to take some of this stuff back to the truck."

DB stares at her, but her face is once again a mask for her feelings. "I'll come give you a hand in a minute," he says, and turns back to David.

"COD's not obvious," David is saying, addressing Brass.

"And TOD?"

"I can't know for sure."

"What do you know for sure?" Brass asks, a little too curtly for DB's taste.

"She didn't bury herself?"

Brass sighs, nods in apology. "It's been a long day."

"You and me both, captain," David says, "You and me both."

**Fade to black.**


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: I hope I haven't lost you, and that you're bearing with me and still reading. It's going to take a little time to set the scene and get to where we want to be. I'm hoping it all comes together; it _will_ come together - eventually. The lack of Grissom in this story is frustrating me, as I'm sure it's frustrating you.

Thanks for reading, and leaving a review. I need all the encouragement I can get with this challenge. Because a challenge it is, believe me.

* * *

**********************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 03:**

Nick is in the lab, headed to the layout room to document the sports bag recovered in the Corvette when he spies Greg in the A/V room. The young CSI is tapping at a computer keyboard and viewing black and white CCTV footage on a screen in front of him. A smug smile forms on Nick's face as he steps into the room and carefully sets down his evidence onto the counter next to where Greg is working. Glass bottles clank together.

"Greggo, my friend," he says, and pats his friend on the back, "I found something that, I think, belongs to you."

Greg keeps his attention on his work. "Yeah?" he replies absently, his eyes tracking the action on the screen. "And what's that?"

"Well, your loot, of course."

Greg stops tapping and turns toward Nick with puzzlement. "My _what_?"

Nick pats the bag again and Greg's eyes lower to it. "Two bottles of Gordon's London dry gin, one of Jim Beam, another of Smirnoff," Greg's eyes widen, "add a few lottery tickets for good measure, a little cash, and you got yourself―"

"A robbery. _My_ robbery. But how? When? _Where_?"

"It would seem that _my_ hit and run and _your_ robbery are one and the same case. We found the bag in the car."

"He left it there?"

"The strap was snagged on the seat lever. He must have panicked, ditched the bag and decided to save his skin instead." Nick smiles. "We're looking for the same guy."

Greg nods. "Medium height, medium built. He wore black everything – clothes, sneakers, gloves, everything. And he was quick on his feet too. The clerk gave chase, but..." Greg shakes his head, chuckles to himself. "Wait for it. He wore a rubber mask."

Nick's brow furrows. "A rubber mask? Like the presidents in Point-Break?"

"Yep. Except it was a Batman mask."

"Well, the Caped Crusader went and crashed his Batmobile big time."

Greg's fingers dance over the keyboard and he brings up a CCTV still on the screen. "That's all I've got of him so far."

Nick stares at the grainy picture on the screen and sighs. They'd never get a positive ID from that. "We didn't find a mask in the car or at the crash scene so he must have taken it with him when he fled. Unless…" He frowns, shakes his head, annoyed at his oversight. "There were some dumpsters there. I didn't think to check inside, didn't have any reason to. I'll call Finn, see if she can swing by on her way back from the hospital and check."

"She won't like that."

Nick beams. "Someone's got to do it."

"I checked the dumpsters near the liquor store, and found nothing there. The store's CCTV was useless, but the traffic cameras should have picked him up somewhere. I got a couple of witnesses say he went east on Pennwood."

"Well, we know where he wound up. He must have planned his escape route carefully," Nick muses, "and parked the Corvette near the store but out of sight so as not to attract attention. And a car like that would have attracted a lot of attention."

Greg gives an absent nod. "He wore gloves, so I got no prints anywhere in the store."

Nick pats his hand to the evidence bag. "Well, we got this. Maybe we'll have more luck there."

"Maybe, but the clerk filled it, so her prints will be all over it and the gear inside, not the perp's."

Nick nods. "It's worth a shot anyway. It's not a new bag. He's probably used it before, right?"

Greg looks dubious, but they've caught breaks on slimmer pickings in the past. "Let me know if you find anything. I'm going to carry on here. The Corvette should be easy enough to spot. He drove what three blocks until he crashed? I'm thinking he would have to take the mask off to drive. Maybe we can get him on camera after all."

"Unless he kept the mask on and that's what caused the crash." Nick picks up his evidence. "I'll document all this booty, and then get it to Mandy and Hodges. The Corvette should be here by then."

Greg nods, turns his attention back to the screen.

Nick reaches for his phone to call Finn, then makes to leave but thinks better of it. "Oh, and Greg?"

Greg half turns his head toward Nick, but keep his eyes on the screen.

"Those rumours that are going round, they're not true, right? Cos you got to know I'm taking a lot of flak for you."

"Get out of here," Greg says, a big smile on his face.

**Fade to black.**

**********************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 04:**

It's dark outside, the only light in the alleyway that of Finn's truck and a flickering streetlight fifty yards away. Finn is knee-deep inside a dumpster, bent over trash. She's wearing coveralls, heavy-duty black rubber gloves and a head torch. Her hair is tied back, caught in the head torch strap, but the same strand of hair keeps falling into her eyes, and she blows at it over and over again. She isn't looking happy.

Music drifts up to her from nearby. A police car screams past, headed south on Arville Street. It's the fifth dumpster she searches in a row, and she has nothing but bad smell and dirty coveralls to show for it. She's had enough, wants nothing more than a hot shower, or better still a deep soak in the tub. And a back massage. As she sifts through detritus, she's muttering under her breath, something about Nick getting what's coming to him.

"Calling the shots, my ass," she says disgruntledly.

"Hey, you! That's mine! That's my dumpster!"

Finn startles. Her right hand automatically moves through the opening in the coverall pocket to her hip and the gun holstered there, before she straightens and turns toward the voice. Briefly, she regrets not calling for a unit to watch her back. The beam of her head torch shines straight at the man's face. He takes a step back, raises one hand to shield his eyes. He looks to be a homeless man in his sixties. He's holding some pieces of cardboard to him. He appears harmless.

She relaxes her stance, turns her head a little to the side so the light isn't directly in the man's eyes. "It's okay," she says in a friendly tone, "I'm almost done. I'll be gone in a few minutes."

The man's face lights up at the sight of Finn. "Take your time doll. I don't often get visitors, especially not as pretty as you. I don't mind sharing, or watching." He squints up. "You police? What are you searching for?"

Finn pauses, decides to be upfront with him. "A Batman rubber mask?"

"For real?"

"For real."

"Well, I haven't seen no Batman, or Robin, for that matter." The man chuckles at his own joke, but his laughter peters off into coughing.

"Yeah, me neither."

"You going to be much longer?" the man asks when he's recovered. "Cos I'm not feeling too good. I wouldn't mind going to bed soon."

Finn casts a look around her feet. "Nah. I'm done." She lifts one leg out of the trash and takes a wobbly step toward the edge of the dumpster, almost losing her balance in the process.

"You need a hand out of there?"

"You're good," Finn calls back, and swiftly lowers herself down onto firmer grounds. The man steps back to let her pass. She pauses, and pulling her gloves off turns back to him. She keeps her tone light and casual. "There was a crash, a block down this way," she points to her right, then checks her watch, "around three to four hours ago."

The man's gaze lowers. "I heard about it."

"What did you hear?"

The man shrugs. "Someone died."

"That's right," Finn says, "A woman died. A mother and wife whose life's been cut short by some scumbag who drove straight at her and didn't bother to offer assistance or call 911." She can feel the anger rise, and she clamps her mouth shut, raises her hands in surrender. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to take…my frustrations out on you."

The man shrugs his shoulders. "I may have seen a guy running, in passing like," he says reluctantly.

"How about…I take you to that diner down the road and buy you a cup of coffee, huh? Then maybe you can tell me about it."

The man's face brightens. "Make it a coffee and a large burger meal and you got yourself a deal."

**Fade to black.**


	5. Chapter 5

**************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 05**:

Sara's phone vibrates in her pocket. She pulls her soil-covered gloves off and retrieves it. Brass's name flashes on the screen. "Jim," she says, immediately connecting the call, "Tell me you've got something."

"I'm sorry, but I don't. No missing teen matches our vic's description in Jean, Vegas or the surrounding area. I widened the search to include the whole of Nevada, but nothing as yet. I need more, Sara. I need to be able to narrow down the parameters."

Sara's expression is downcast. "I know."

"The coroner's looked at the body yet?"

"I asked David to put a rush on it, but…" Her voice trails off into silence.

"I know," Brass says, "They're backed up." His long sigh can be heard over the line. She can well imagine Brass sat at his desk with his jacket off and his tie loosened, tiredly rubbing at his face. "I was thinking…she's a minor, right? So someone, somewhere, _is_ missing her."

"Missing her, yeah. Doesn't mean she's been reported as such, though."

There is a beat before Brass says, "Let me know when you have a photo I can use―one where she doesn't look so dead."

"I will."

"If missing persons doesn't bring up anything we'll put her on the local news. See what turns up. Even if she isn't from around here someone might recognise her. It's a long shot I know but―"

"I'll do my best."

A few parting words and Sara disconnects the call. They have so little detail, so little to go on. As she slips on gloves and returns to sifting soil, she can't help thinking of yet another young life wasted, another life ended with violence and pain. What did their victim do to deserve that kind of treatment, Sara wonders? She was dressed, with panties on, so presumably sexual assault wasn't the motive for killing her.

Sara works methodically but mechanically until finally she spots something metallic embedded in the soil. Gently, she digs and brushes around the object until she reveals the edge of a blue plastic barrette with a metal clasp at the back. Her heartbeat quickens at the find. She eases the barrette out of the soil and turns it over in her hand. It is in one piece, unclasped, but seemingly unbroken.

She cleans dirt off it, finds what appears to be hair caught in it. She uses tweezers to pull out the hair and puts it in a bindle. She can't see any follicle attached to it but Hodges might under microscope. Could be the victim's hair, of course, in which case the coroner will give them a better sample, but it could also be the killer's.

Regardless, a DNA sample of the victim could help with identification. If her DNA itself isn't on record, something Sara strongly suspects on account of the victim's age, then they might be able to get a familial DNA match with that of close relative whose DNA _is_ on record. And an ID _could _help with finding the killer.

"What have you got?"

DB's voice draws her out of her reverie. Sara swivels round and shows him the barrette. He leans in close and examines it. "Do you think we can get prints off it?"

"I don't know. It's kind of a rough and small surface and it's been in soil for a while. I'll get it to Mandy. If there's a print on it, even a partial, she'll lift it."

DB nods. "Why don't I take over from you here? I got a call from Doc. Our Jane Doe's ready. Fancy a trip to the morgue?"

Sara's lips twitch with a smile. "You sure know how to talk to a girl."

DB breaks into a grin. "Hey, don't mock. That's one of my best lines."

Sara turns back to the mound of earth still needing to be sifted through, then nods her head. A trip to the morgue is just what she needs. She bags the barrette, takes the bindle containing the hair and leaves DB to it. Once she's dropped her evidence off to the respective labs and gone to the bathroom she picks up her camera and heads down to the morgue.

"Hey, Doc."

Dr Robbins looks up and over at her and removes his glasses. "Sara. I was expecting DB."

"Well, you got me," Sara says with a bright smile.

Robbins smiles back. "Don't tell him I said that, but I like you much better." His expression darkens, and he turns back to the body on the table. "She's ready for you."

Sara lets the door swing shut behind her, grabs a lab coat she puts on and walks up to the autopsy table. She swallows, readies herself for what she knows she's going to find. The body looks small on the long stainless steel table, smaller than it did in its shallow grave. Her nose twitches at the smell of decay.

"This is the best I could do in the circumstance," Robbins says.

Sara looks up and nods, forces a smile. "Thank you for putting her ahead of the list."

"You're welcome. How are you getting on upstairs?"

"Slowly. DB's still sifting through soil we dug up from the grave site. So far we've only got a hair barrette to show for it." Sara shoulders the camera she's brought with her, shakes her head. "Missing persons hasn't turned out anything either."

"Not yet." Robbins' tone is uplifting, meaning he believes it's a matter of time before they do find something and catch their break, but Sara isn't convinced.

Sara nods her head nevertheless, grateful for his support. "I was thinking she could be a runaway, but I don't know. We have so little to go on."

"Well, hopefully I can help with that." He meets her gaze and holds it. "David bagged her clothes and the crucifix. She wasn't wearing anything else."

"I'll take them up with me, give them to Hodges."

Robbins nods, picks up his glasses from around his neck and slips them on. "COD's not obvious," he says, all business now, and points at the body. "There is some bruising, notably around the throat and neck area, but I won't know exactly how she died until after the autopsy."

Sara's eyes are on the neck, but all she can see are indistinct marks and patches of discoloration. "Strangulation?"

Robbins looks ambivalent. "I need to take a look inside to know for sure."

"Any signs of sexual abuse?"

"Not that I can tell. What I can tell you though, from my preliminary observations, is that she's about five foot three, that she has brown eyes and hair, and that her bone structure and skin colouring suggests Hispanic descend."

"Mexican?"

"I can't be certain. Also she has bad teeth, and I mean _bad_ teeth – cavities that have never been treated and would have been painful, but also two crooked lateral incisors which would normally have been straightened with orthodontic work by now."

"You mean braces."

Robbins nods. "I don't think she's ever been to the dentist."

"Dental care is expensive," Sara remarks.

"Tell me about it."

With a sigh, Sara sets her camera down on the tray table nearby, moves over to a cabinet and takes out what she needs to take the girl's fingerprints.

"Her third molars haven't erupted either," Robbins says when she returns, "so all things considered I'd put her age at between fourteen to seventeen―eighteen years old. I've taken x-rays, in case we ever get dental records to compare them to."

Sara takes a moment to digest it all. Then she begins the grim task of printing the fingers of the right hand. "Time of death?" she asks, glancing up.

Robbins purses his mouth, hesitating. "That's more tricky."

"Best estimate? I need as much detail as I can."

"She's very well preserved," he says in a sigh.

Sara nods, stares at the girl's face, imagines a pretty girl looking back at her. "I think someone took the trouble to bury her, fairly deeply, deeply enough to conceal the smell of decay from insects and animals and keep her cool. I've checked weather reports for that area and there was some flash flooding the night before last. I think the ground shifted, gradually uncovering the body and moving it into the ditch."

She puts down her equipment next to her camera and picks up the clear evidence bag containing the cross pendant and chain necklace. She stares at it at length. It is a plain gold cross, no bigger than a penny coin. Well, it looks like gold anyway. Sara owns a very similar one, except hers is white gold, a gift from Grissom's mother given to her on their wedding day. She's only ever worn it a handful of times.

"Do you think it's symbolic?" Robbins asks.

Sara refocuses, looks up with a start. "Like in a religious way?"

Robbins nods. "It's the most recognised symbolism of someone's commitment to the Christian faith, given as gifts for rites such as baptism, confirmation, first Holy Communion, that type of things."

Sara ponders his words over. "Then it could explain why someone took the trouble to bury her rather than just leave her to rot at the side of the road." She gives an empty laugh. "Didn't stop them from murdering her, of course."

"That's assuming the killer knew the victim and shared into her Christian beliefs," Robbins argues quietly.

Sara nods; but something tells her the killing wasn't random. She can feel Robbins' concerned eyes on her, and she knows her tone betrayed her growing unease about the case. She walks past the coroner round to the body's other side, gently lifts up the victim's left hand and prints each finger in turn.

"If I were to make a guess," Robbins says as he watches her, "and as it stands it is just that, a guess, I'd estimate post-mortem interval to between ten and fifteen days. And that if as you say she was interred."

Sara turns toward him.

Robbins continues. "You're right, the lack of animal and insect activity is telling, and would have dramatically reduced rates of decomposition. Dark, cold and rain limit the amount of insects that would otherwise colonise a body. As you well know," he adds pointedly.

Sara gives him a small smile. "Thank you."

Robbins stares at her and smiles back. His smile is soft and caring. She can tell that he wants to say more, ask how she's doing, that he knows that what he said sounded like something Grissom would have said and made her feel uncomfortable, but he doesn't say anything and she's grateful. She walks back to the tray table and swaps the victim's ten-print card with her camera.

She's about to take the shots of the face needed to create a photofit image that can be released to the media and aid with their inquiries when Robbins asks, "Will you be able to…give life to her again?"

Sara pauses and stares at the girl's face through the camera's viewfinder. "I hope so. I really hope so."

**Fade to black.**


	6. Chapter 6

******************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 06**:

"Stokes, you owe me five dumpster runs, and a day at the spa. And I mean it."

Nick pauses at the sound of Finn's voice, then turns. Fresh out of the shower and dressed in clean coveralls, she's looking and sounding peeved. "I didn't think we were keeping scores," he says, a smile tugging at his lips.

Finn's eyes are on the Corvette. "Well, you thought wrong. I always keep scores."

Nick's expression registers surprise, as though he doesn't quite know whether she's being serious or not.

"Which reminds me," Finn adds, as she snaps on gloves, "you also owe me twenty bucks."

"Twenty bucks?" Nick repeats with a chuckle of disbelief.

"That's right." She turns toward him, has a smug grin on her lips. "I didn't find the rubber mask, but I found a witness. Or rather he found me. Homeless guy. He was hungry, needed a little company. You bought him food. I provided the company."

Nick's looking amused. "I did?"

Finn nods.

"And?"

"Our reckless driver wasn't wearing a mask, but he was carrying something in his hand. He wore all black. And he had a ball cap on – a New York Yankees cap, black with white lettering to be exact."

"That ties in with what the liquor store clerk across the street from the crash said."

Finn nods. "Also he was white, late teens to early twenties. Light brown hair, but we're not too sure about that. He was running with a limp."

"Must have hurt himself in the crash," Nick muses out loud. "You let Vartann know?"

Finn nods. With a twist of his lips, Nick reaches into his pants pocket through the coverall side opening and pulls out two crumpled ten-dollar bills. He flattens them out then holds them out to Finn. She has no qualms about pocketing the money.

"So where do you want me?" she asks, returning her attention to the car.

"I've done the outside. Got a truck load of prints, but our perp wore gloves so they're not likely to be his. How did it go at the hospital?"

Finn sighs, lifts her shoulder as she turns toward Nick. "Not good. Daisy's the little girl's name. She still isn't talking, not even to her father."

"Give her a little time. We can try again tomorrow."

Finn nods her head, but they both know that it will take longer than a little time for Daisy to get over seeing her mother being run over and die. "The husband's devastated, demanded to know what happened, wants the guy brought to justice. I had so little to tell him – aside from the obvious."

Nick nods, and knowing how tough it is to meet the victims' families gently pats Finn on the shoulder. "At least he didn't lose both."

Finn musters a smile. "All right, so let's see if this beauty has a story to tell. You do the inside, while I take a look under the hood?"

"Yes, Ma'am."

Fun, Fun, Fun by the beach Boys plays softly in the background as they work, silent and totally engrossed. Nick swabs, dusts, documents while Finn checks the engine and undercarriage to rule out tampering or mechanical failure as cause for the crash. Nick is processing the rear of the car when his face lights up and he shakes his head. He turns off the ALS he was using and takes off his protective glasses, ready to share his discovery with Finn. The music fades.

"Finn, come and take a look at this," he says, extricating himself out of the car.

There's no reply.

"Finn?"

Finn rolls out from under the car; she's looking distracted.

"Everything okay?" he asks.

She gives her head a shake, as though drawing herself back to the present, pushes into a sitting position and looks up at Nick. She sighs. "Sara seems all right to you?"

The unexpectedness of the question takes Nick by surprise. He frowns. "No different than usual. Why?"

"I'm worried about her," Finn says and pushes to her feet. "There's something not right."

Nick's confusion turns to concern. "How do you mean?"

Finn shrugs, puts the spanner she's holding down and pulls her oily gloves off. "It's nothing in particular. It's just that…she and I went for a drink the night before last, you know, two single gals out for a little fun." She sighs, lifts a shoulder. "I was hoping she'd―we'd meet some guys and you know…"

Nick's face softens as understanding dawns. Uncomfortable, he averts his eyes to the ALS and safety glasses in his hands and looks back up, then over his shoulder to check they're alone. "You know, Finn," he says tactfully, "I don't really want to know what you and Sara get up to when―"

"Do you know she hasn't heard from him at all since the breakup?" Finn says heatedly, interrupting him.

Nick's look of confusion returns. "Who, Grissom?" he asks after a beat.

Finn nods. "Nothing. Not a word, even on a postcard. And she waits. I know she's waiting. She doesn't ever mention it, but she doesn't need to. She's got this…" Finn waves her hand about, searching for the right word, "…look about her. I know she goes home every day hoping he's called. It's not healthy, Nick, and I'm worried about her."

"I'm sure she's fine," he tries weakly.

But Finn is on a roll, and shakes her head at his words. "She isn't fine, Nick. She's hanging on to something that's clearly not there anymore. I told her she needs to file for divorce, cut the noose once and for all."

"Finn, I'm not comfortable discussing―"

"But she won't do it," Finn is now saying, talking over him. "Oh, no. She's scared. He's messed her up bad, Nick. Real bad."

Nick lets out a long breath, nods his head. "The Grissom I know―knew," he amends pointedly, "is a straight-up kind of guy. I mean we had our differences, but he had our backs, and I looked up to him. I don't know what happened**."**

"Yeah, well, I never met the guy, but the way he's treated Sara..." Finn gives her head another shake. "If one of my husbands had treated me like that…I'd have…_castrated_ him."

Nick's lips pinch, partly to stifle a smile and partly in pain at the thought. He can quite believe she would do it too. "Castrated, huh?"

"Too right," Finn replies, grinning widely. Her smile disappears almost instantly. "I just don't see how―why she _can't_ just…let it go, you know? If it's over, it's over. Period. You just got to move on, right?"

Finn's words strike a chord with him. He pauses, nods his head. When he talks, his voice is quiet, reflective. "Griss and Sara, well, they always had this…_thing_, this…connection, right from the start." He gives an empty chuckle. "I've known Sara close to fourteen years, and in all this time I've only ever known of one other guy she's dated. And he was a two-timing scumbag."

"Well then, she's got as much judgement as I have when it comes to men," Finn says in a sigh.

"Oh, I don't know. I think she met the one. It just―"

"Wasn't meant to be, huh?"

"Something like that," he says and checks the entrance to the garage, clearly uneasy about discussing his friend's life behind her back.

"Maybe I need to hook her up with that new detective," Finn says. "What's his name?"

"And maybe we ought to get back to work." Nick's tone conveys quiet authority.

Finn pulls a grudging face, but glances at the Corvette nevertheless. "I got nothing," she says at last. "The damage is all consistent with the crash."

Nick pauses to refocus his mind on their case, but makes a mental note to spend some time with Sara soon and find out if Finn's concern is well-founded. "So, we're looking at reckless driving as the cause."

"Yep, we got him on one count of vehicular manslaughter. Robbery's the least of this guy's worries."

Nick nods, then hands Finn the UV glasses. "Take a look at the backseat."

Finn frowns, puts on the glasses. Nick holds out the ALS and after switching it on Finn reaches in and slowly shines it onto the backseat. "Semen," she exclaims at last, and comes out of the car.

Nick nods. "I'll take a swab to make sure, take it to Henry. But that's all I got." He pauses, watches Finn put the light and goggles away. Something is clearly puzzling him. "Look at that Corvette, Finn, it's beautiful. Aside from the smashed front end and now the semen, what do you notice?"

Finn purses her mouth, clearly perplexed, takes a good look around the car, then smiles in realisation. "It's immaculate. No scratches, dents, polished to a gleam. Inside and out. And look at the tyres, almost brand new."

"That's right. This car's a collectible. It's hardly ever used. It's loved; someone's pride and joy. This car is―"

"Garaged."

"Exactly."

Finn taps her index finger to her mouth as she figures it out. "We got what appears to be semen on the backseat, which is inconsistent with how clean the rest of the car is. The perp had the keys. You thinking someone borrowed the car, took it for a joyride, and stopped to grab some party booze and stuff on the way?"

"Oh, yeah."

"Rodney Carver got kids?"

"I'll call Vartann. See if he's tracked him down yet."

**Fade to black.**

******************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 07**: 

DB is rushing down the corridor at CSI and craning his neck left and right looking for Sara. He's carrying a paper bag in one hand and a cardboard tray in the other, takeout breakfast for two. He hopes she hasn't clocked off yet – well, no, that's not strictly true. He hopes she has clocked off, but knows that the chances of that being the case are slim to none.

He wanted to suggest a team breakfast but everyone's busy. Maybe if it's just him and her, at work where she feels comfortable, she will open up a little about what is troubling her. He hopes she does. He doesn't have far to go, for Sara has set up camp in the break room. One hand massaging her temple, she is bent over her laptop, her eyes repeatedly flicking between the screen and the photofit of their Jane Doe on the table beside her.

"Wow," DB says, looking at the photo, and carefully sets his load down next to it. "You did a great job."

Sara looks up and smiles her thanks.

"Brass's got a copy?"

She nods. "She'll be making the lunchtime news."

DB regards Sara softly, glances at the laptop. "Still nothing in missing persons?"

She shakes her head. Then she stretches, grabs her empty cup and stands to refill it. She picks up the coffee pot, waves it in the air as she talks. She is sounding as tired and dejected as she looks. "She's just a child, DB."

DB walks round the table and up to her, and takes the coffee pot and cup out of her hands before she can refill it. The pot goes back on the stand, the cup in the sink. "Why have this watered down sludge when you can have the real thing, huh?" he says lightly.

"The real thing?" she asks with puzzlement.

DB indicates the table with a nod.

Her brow rises as she reads the name on the paper bag. "Vanilla spice latte?"

"I do believe that's what I ordered."

"With extra whipped cream?"

"And a cinnamon sugar pretzel, the way the lady likes it." He gives Sara a wide smile. "You weren't planning on going home, were you?"

Sara smiles and shakes her head.

"That's what I thought. So, how about breakfast here? You and me? My treat?"

"You got yourself a date."

**Fade out.**


	7. Chapter 7

**********************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 08:**

Sara closes the laptop and rubs her right hand to the back of her neck. She's tired; this case has got her all worked up and frustrated, and a short break from her search in NamUs – the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Systems – is just what she needs. DB opens the paper bag, takes out the pretzels, moves the laptop away and places Sara's food and drink in front of her.

He throws her a complicit glance and she smiles at him, impressed that he remembered what she likes, touched that he went to all the trouble of driving to Luk's to get it. When is the last time anyone has gone out of their way for her, she wonders, only to feel a sharp pang of sadness when she remembers.

"How long has it been since we did this, huh?" DB asks, hungrily biting into his pretzel. "Have breakfast, I mean."

Sara casts her mind back, but try as she may can't recall the last time they did. "A while," she eventually settles for and takes the lid off her drink.

"Too long," DB concurs.

Sara nods, tears into her pretzel and brings one half to her mouth.

"How's your mother doing these days?" DB asks, his tone pleasant and interested.

She finishes her mouthful and wipes a little sugar from her lips. "She's doing well," she says warmly. "As a matter of fact we're busy planning our next trip."

"Oh, yeah?"

Sara nods, takes a careful sip of her drink. "She wants to…go back to see the ocean. She says she misses it. So we're going to take a road trip up the 101 from LA to San Francisco."

"The old 101," he says in a chuckle and shakes his head, "I know it well." He shakes his head again and lapses into silence. His gaze becomes distant as his smile widens in recollection. "I remember this one time before Barbara and I got married we took a road trip down the West Coast. We planned to go all the way from Aberdeen, Washington, to Mexico." He laughs again.

Sara's smile is wide, interested. "What happened?"

"Oh, I had this old convertible, this piece of junk that just kept breaking down. We made it as far as McKinleyville before we called it quits and thumbed our way back home." He smiles, shakes his head again and takes a sip of his coffee. "Those were the days."

Sara's eyes lower to her drink and she wraps her hands around it. "And how's Barbara?"

DB smiles, finishes his mouthful. "She's good. Charlie's finishing at UNLV at the end of the semester so she's busy getting ready for that."

"He's finishing already?"

DB nods, sighs. "He's moving back home," he says, sounding somewhat downcast. "Needless to say Barbara's thrilled."

"You're not?"

"Oh, I don't know. It'll be nice shooting hoops with him again, I guess."

Sara smiles at the image DB's words conjure, then nods and returns her attention to her pretzel, and for a while they eat and drink in companionable silence. She's about to rinse down her last morsel of pretzel when DB speaks again.

"Where's Grissom at these days?" he asks, as casually as if he'd asked her what time it was.

The question stops Sara dead in her tracks. Grissom isn't a name that passes people's lips at the lab any more, not in her presence anyway, and she doesn't know how to answer. She can feel DB's concerned eyes on her and keeping her own gaze averted to her drink she shrugs her shoulders. She could dodge answering of course, or tell an outright lie, but something compels her not to.

Maybe it's DB's caring tone, the fact that she knows that he would never betray a confidence. Or maybe it's the fact that she feels so very alone and isolated, has no one to confide in and share her pain and worries with. Grissom's sudden and unexplained departure from her life has left a great gaping wound, one that refuses to heal, or more accurately one Sara refuses to let heal.

How can she move on? How can she be expected to? Grissom's been in her heart for as long as she can remember, and he still is, always would be, however painful that may be. And aside from her memories, her pain – that searing and piercing pain she feels every day – is all she has left of her husband; all she has left of their love. She would rather feel that pain tenfold than not feel anything at all.

She simply can't accept that things are over between them, not until he tells her face to face. A measly phone call just doesn't cut it, not after everything they went through. She can't talk to her mother about any of it, and Finn who's tried in her own way to get her to open up and move on wouldn't understand, _couldn't_ understand why she still clings to any ray of hope.

Finn has never found true love, she's never lived it, never _felt_ it, never surrendered herself to it. She doesn't know what it means to love someone unconditionally, the sacrifices it entails. She doesn't know what it is to be irremediably, irrevocably, connected to another human being so that not even death or separation could them part.

"I have no idea," she says at last, and turns a pained smile toward her boss, "and that's the sad truth."

DB's shock is as visible as his compassion. "You don't?"

Sara shakes her head softly. "It's like he's disappeared off the face of the earth, except that I know he hasn't because he still pays half of the mortgage."

"But you don't hear from him."

"No. Nothing. Not since the breakup."

"How odd."

"He was working in Texas then, and as far as I know he's not been back to Vegas since."

"Not even to see his mother?"

Sara's only reply is to shrug her shoulders.

"But surely she knows where he is," DB insists. "Haven't you asked her?"

Sara feels heat rise in her cheeks. "And say what?"

"I don't know. Just that you need to get in touch with him because of work."

"But that'd be admitting I don't know where he is. Betty and I…well, let's just say that we had our differences."

DB lets out a long sigh, nods his head. "She didn't approve, huh?"

"Something like that."

"I still think it's very strange, you know, that you don't know where he is."

"Not so much, knowing Grissom." She's thought about it a lot over the months, and when she closes her eyes she can see him clear as day happy doing what he loves best. "I figure he's got himself on some research programme somewhere remote. You know? Like at sea, or some jungle or something."

"Antarctica maybe?" DB says it with a smile, but Sara doesn't take the bait. "Wherever he is, there's always the internet and email. It's not like someone's totally out of touch anymore."

Sara nods. "His mail still comes home – bank statements, letters from universities and colleges, professional stuff. I haven't opened any of it. I just shove it in a drawer." She gives an empty laugh. "I've a drawer full of the stuff, and I have no idea where to forward it to, reckons he doesn't want it forwarded or he would have taken steps to do it himself."

"I don't know what to say, Sara."

"There isn't anything to say. Marriages end all the time. I just can't seem to…" her voice falters and she swallows the sudden constriction in her throat, "to be able to move on, you know? I thought that what Gil and I had was the real thing. It was for me anyway, evidently not for him." She blinks at the tears pricking her eyes. "I mean, our marriage wasn't perfect, far from it, but it was…home. My home."

DB nods, then scoots his chair over and drapes a sympathetic arm around Sara's shoulders. Sara closes her eyes, enjoys the contact albeit fleeting; one friend comforting another, nothing more. "What about all his stuff?" he asks after a beat, and pulls back.

"Don't worry," she laughs, "I don't go home every morning and cuddle up to his stuff. I'm not that far gone. Not yet anyway," she adds with a smile. "Some stuff I gave away to Goodwill. Some I took back to his mother. And the valuable stuff, what I think he might want to come back for one day, I kept." She pinches her lips, gives a sad smile. "You know the worst thing?"

DB shakes his head softly.

"The first thing I do when I get home is check the answerphone in case he's called and left a message. Or in case they call to tell me he's hurt."

"Oh, Sara. I had no idea." His words are barely a whisper.

Sara wipes at a rogue tear. "Why would you? I'm good at hiding my feelings – well, most of the time."

"Have _you_ tried emailing him?"

She nods. "At first, but I got no reply. His cell's been disconnected – the number I had for him anyway."

"What about looking for him? I mean, track him down."

She shakes her head.

"Why not? It's not like you haven't got the means."

"Pride? Fear?" she answers in a sigh. "I figure that if he wanted me to know where he is he'd tell me."

DB's brow furrows. "Maybe there's a reason why he can't. What about witness protection programme?"

Sara smiles, shakes her head. "I'd know."

"Have you asked Jim? I understand him and your husband were friends."

She nods. "He hasn't heard from him either."

DB looks at her with a look akin to pity Sara barely stands. "What do you want to do?" DB asks in a sigh. "How do you want to play it?" He nods at the laptop in front of Sara. "Is he a missing person too?"

"No. He just doesn't want to be found, that's all."

"Still."

DB opens his mouth then closes it, and Sara can tell he wants to say more but thinks better of it. That's one of the things she likes about him, that he can offer his support without being pushy and overbearing or judgemental. He understands how she feels, why she's acting the way she is. He knows what she's going through, understands it on a level Finn and the others never could.

"I got your back, all right?" he says instead and pats her hand warmly. "You need anything, you just ask."

**Fade to black.**

**********************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 09:**

Sara lets herself into her house and shuts the door on the outside world. Quickly she disables the alarm, dumps the mail and her keys on the hall table, her purse and jacket on the couch. She is tired and sore and downcast. Her search for their Jane Doe in all the missing persons databases at her disposal has proven fruitless. All they have left now is a potential DNA match in CODIS and the hope that someone, somewhere, will recognise her from the photofit face soon to be shown on the news.

She massages the back of her neck and looks over to the sideboard. The answerphone is showing no messages. Her eyes linger on the one photograph of her and Grissom she's kept on show next to the phone. She turns the television on to a local news channel, takes off her boots and socks, then slips on her house shoes and heads to the kitchen where she pours herself a large glass of juice.

"Have you seen this girl?"

Sara pricks up her ears. She turns toward the sound and glass in hand makes her way back to the lounge. The photofit of their Jane Doe that fills the television screen shows a pretty Latina girl with long straight brown hair and big dark eyes. She isn't smiling. She's looking straight ahead of her, straight at Sara who can only stare back, transfixed by the girl's sad, unblinking gaze. She knows it well, has stared at it for many hours. There's a message in those eyes, a message Sara reads only too well.

"I know the person who did this to me."

**Fade to black.**


	8. Chapter 8

**************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 10:**

"Mr Carver," Vartann says as he and Nick walk up to Rodney Carver sitting alone in an interview room, "I'm detective Vartann. This is Nick Stokes from the crime lab."

His eyes flicking between Nick and Vartann warily, Carver rises to his feet. Nick and Vartann share a look, its meaning clear. They both know Carver isn't their suspect. Short, stocky and wearing a goatee he doesn't fit their witnesses' description or look the type who could outrun the young convenience store clerk. But if Carver didn't do it then whoever did had access to the house and car keys. It has to be someone known to the family, someone who had the alarm code and knew their way round the house and garage, someone who knew the Carvers would be away overnight.

"Crime lab?" Carver says, "I don't understand. I thought I was here because you found my stolen Corvette."

"You are," Vartann says, then opens his hand indicating that Carver should sit down. Carver looks at the chair then warily does as bid, and Nick and Vartann follow suit across the table from him. Vartann sets a file down in front of him. He keeps it closed. "Sir, theft aside, your car was involved in the commission of a crime ― two crimes actually," he amends quietly.

Carver wipes a shaky hand over his face. "I don't know what to say. I didn't even know the 'Vette was missing. Until I got your call, I had no idea it wasn't in the garage anymore." He blows out a deep breath, shakes his head in disbelief before his eyes widen suddenly. "Is it damaged?" he utters in a fraught whisper. "Did they wreck it?"

"Yes Sir," Nick replies.

Carver's eyes drift shut as the man seem to deflate before them. "Bastards," he mutters under his breath, and shakes his head dejectedly.

Vartann and Nick share a look. "It was used as the getaway vehicle for the robbery of a convenience store," Nick says. "The driver rounded a corner too fast and lost control, mounting the curb and hitting a pedestrian head-on – a mother and wife who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time."

Carver looks up abruptly. He is ashen. "Oh, dear God. Is she all right?"

"No Sir," Vartann says. "I'm afraid the lady didn't make it. She died at the scene."

Carver sighs, wipes his hand down his face. "Have you caught the guy who did it?"

"The guy?" Nick interjects. "How do you know it was a guy?"

Carver's gaze snaps to Nick. "I d-don't," he defends quickly. "I―I just assumed. It's a man's car, you know."

Vartann stares at Carver expressionlessly. "No, we haven't caught the guy," he says, "He ran off." And then without missing a beat, "Where do you keep the keys?"

Carver brings his eyes back to Vartann. "The keys?"

"To the Corvette."

Carver frowns. "One set I have with me. It's in the car – my other car – and the spare I keep at home on a hook in the laundry room."

"You sure about that?" Nick says.

Carver gives a definite nod. Then his eyes narrow, showing distrust. "Why?"

"Whoever stole your car," Vartann says, "had the key."

Carver's brow furrows even more. "What are you saying?" He scoffs and shakes his head. "It wasn't me. I wasn't even in Vegas. You know that."

Vartann nods, lifts his hand to stop Carver. "Mr Carver, calm down. We're not accusing you. We _know_ it wasn't you. But you got to admit that whoever stole your car knew where to find the keys."

Carver pauses, nods his head. "They must have broken into the house and found the keys."

"We went to your house, Mr Carver, and found no signs of forced entry. The house is secure, the alarm on, just like I'm sure you left it."

Carver takes in a breath, releases it slowly. "Then I don't know how it could have happened," he admits in a low voice.

"Aside from you, your wife and kids, who else has a key to the house?"

Carver purses his mouth thoughtfully, shakes his head. "No one."

"No pool guy, cleaner…" Carver's shake of the head is continuous, "Not even a neighbour? Your parents?"

Again, Carver shakes his head. Nick and Vartann exchange another look; it's time for a change of tack. "Mr Carver," Nick says, and Carver refocuses on him, "we found semen in the backseat of the Corvette. Can you explain that?"

"What's _that_ got to do with anything?"

"Can you answer the question please?" The tone of Vartann's voice brooks no argument.

Carver sighs, then scoffs and shakes his head. "You're thinking the semen's mine?"

Vartann and Nick's faces display the same blank expression. They remain silent, happy to let Carver fill the silence.

Carver shakes his head, points a finger at himself. He's clearly finding the idea ludicrous. "Have you seen me?" he says, with a small, disbelieving smile. "Sex in the back of the 'Vette? You'd have to be a contortionist."

"Or small and nimble enough."

The smile vanishes from Carver's face. "How do you mean?"

"You have two kids, right?" Vartann consults his black book. "A boy, Adam, fifteen, and Jessica, seventeen. Both at ages when teenagers begin to…" Vartann opens his hands, searching for the right word, "You know, experiment. It wouldn't be unheard of for kids to borrow their parents' car and, well, have a little fun on the backseat." Vartann looks over at Nick and casually shrugs his shoulders, as if what he is saying is quite commonplace. "I know I did."

Carver's looking indignant. "You're not suggesting…" He stands up, waves his right hand at Nick and Vartann. "No, no, no. My kids are good kids. They wouldn't steal my car and rob a store. Why would they? They already have everything they need. As for killing that poor woman…" Carver clamps his mouth shut and shakes his head, as though the mere idea is revolting.

Vartann lifts a placating hand, then turns it palm up toward the chair. Carver hesitates, his eyes flicking between Nick watching impassively and Vartann, but eventually takes the hint and sits back down. Vartann resumes his questioning. "You said on the phone that you and your wife went away for a couple of days."

"That's right. We took a trip to Reno to visit my wife's family. We stayed overnight."

"Can I ask if Adam and Jessica went with you?"

Carver's eyes widen suddenly. Then he lowers them, swallows and strokes his hand over his goatee.

"Mr Carver?"

Carver glances up. "Adam came," he says at last, "but Jessica stayed behind. Her finals are coming up and she wanted to study. She's going to college in the fall to study law. She's a straight A student."

Vartann nods; Carter wouldn't be the first parent clueless about what their kids get up to outside of school. "Does she drive?"

Carver shakes his head.

"Does she have a boyfriend?"

Carver nods. "He's a good kid."

"He drives?"

Carver nods again.

"Have you ever lent him the car?"

"The Corvette! No! God, no. Even my wife doesn't go near it."

Again Nick and Vartann share a look. "That's what we thought," Vartann says, lapsing into silence, a silence Carver feels compelled to fill.

"But even if…" Carver swallows, "He and Jess _experimented_ in the back of the Corvette, as you say, it doesn't mean they took it out for a drive. And if they did take it out for a drive…maybe the car was stolen from them, you know, carjacked. You hear about it on the news all the time."

Vartann nods, opens the folder and takes out an eight by ten black and white CCTV still. "What's the boy's name?" he asks.

"Tyler."

"Is this him?" Vartann asks, turning the photo toward Carver and pointing at the partially obscured face of the driver.

Carver leans forward, stares at the face with narrowed eyes. "I don't know," he says after a while and looks up. "You don't have anything better?"

"Don't you think that if we did we'd be showing it to you?" Vartann's tone is showing impatience.

Carver sighs, takes another look at the photo." "It could be, I guess. I don't know." He looks up. "I don't see a passenger," he then says, his tone hopeful, and Vartann nods his head. "If Tyler took the car and…" the rest of his words drift off in another sigh, "I'm sure Jess had nothing to do with it."

"Where are they now? Tyler and your daughter."

"I don't know. We came straight here from Reno."

Vartann uncaps his pen, gets his black book out of his pocket. "Can we get Tyler's full name and address?"

Carver's looking utterly despondent. "Sure." He goes on to give them Tyler's details, which Vartann dutifully notes down. And then as Nick and Vartann are pushing to their feet, "About the 'Vette," Carver says and shrugs his shoulder, "When do you think I'll be getting it back?"

**Fade to black.**

**************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 11:**

"Sara! Wait up!"

Nick's call stops Sara in her tracks. She turns and watches Nick jog up to her. He's smiling. "You're checking on your Jane Doe's appeal?" he says. "I saw it on the news earlier. You did a really good job with the photofit."

Sara smiles her thanks. "Well, we won't know how good a job until we get an ID, but I just spoke with Brass and the response is better than I expected. Of course we got to sort through the pranks and time wasters, but we got a few names to follow up on."

Nick lifts his hand to her arm and pats warmly. "Oh, that's good. That's real good." A couple of uniformed officers walk past them, and he gently steers Sara out of the way. His eyes are soft as they sweep over her face. "How are you?" he asks quietly but meaningfully. "Even though we work the same shift I feel like I've hardly seen you lately."

"I'm fine," Sara replies, her face softening with a smile. "Tired, you know, but who isn't?"

Nick's look of concern lingers on. He nods his head.

"Finn told me a little about your case," she says, steering the conversation onto safer grounds. "She said she was going to try talking to the little girl again."

"Daisy. I know."

Sara swallows, shakes her head dejectedly. "Her and her father must be going through hell."

Nick sighs, nods.

"You got any leads yet?"

"As a matter of fact we do. I'm waiting for Vartann now and we're going to pay the daughter's boyfriend a―"

Raised voices coming from the front desk stop Nick mid-sentence. He and Sara turn their heads toward the sound and look on from a distance. Other nearby officers do too. Every other noise recedes into the background. It's almost as if the whole of PD falls silent at once and listens. At the front desk, a woman dressed in jeans and a flowery blouse is in hysterics. She is small, thin, jet black hair held back in a messy ponytail. She waves her arms about and speaks in Spanish, fast, half-swallowed words mingled in her wails and cries.

A boy and a girl stand by her side. The girl looks about twelve and is crying too while clinging to the boy's hand. The boy is older, late teens or early twenties, dark and slim. He's trying to temper the woman's agitation while attempting to translate what she is saying to the desk clerk watching helplessly by. The clerk's hands are raised, trying to stop the woman's flow of words and calm her down, but to no avail.

Sara's eyes are fixed on the little girl, on her tear-streaked face, on her brown eyes, eyes she recognises all too well.

Her Jane Doe's eyes.

**Fade to black.**


	9. Chapter 9

******************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 12:**

As though reeled in by an invisible thread, Sara slowly walks away from Nick over to the front desk, crouches down in front of the little girl and stares straight into her eyes. They are wet, full of the same pain and sadness as her Jane Doe. Her gaze lowers to the girl's neck, to the crucifix pendant she's wearing, identical to the one found on their victim.

The woman stops talking suddenly and grabs the little girl's arm, pulling her away sharply, protectively. Sara looks up and over at her. Her Spanish isn't good, and whatever she picked up during her stay in Costa Rica is mostly gone. But she's going to try because she knows from experience what it is like to be unable to communicate, what it is like to be misunderstood.

She pushes back to her feet, quietly tells the clerk to call Brass, that it's about the appeal on television, and pressing her hand to her chest introduces herself in Spanish to the woman who's wiping a wet and balled handkerchief to her face. Then she turns toward the boy and little girl and offers both a friendly smile.

"¿Quiénes son ustedes?" she asks, hoping that her use of the Spanish for "Who are you?" will instill a little trust.

Neither the boy nor the girl answers her. They both turn to the woman whose reply comes out so fast as to overwhelm Sara.

"My mother doesn't speak a lot of English," the boy explains, and then earnestly, "We saw my sister on television. We saw her face. Her photo."

Sara nods, glances down at the little girl whose face is peeking from behind her brother.

"Daniela," the boy continues in a fraught whisper, after his mother prompts him in Spanish, "She's dead, isn't she?"

What do you say? How do you answer a question like that? Sara pinches her lips to keep her own emotion at bay and nods her head slowly. "I'm very sorry. Lo siento mucho," she says once to the boy and a second time to the mother whose eyes fill with tears again as she crosses herself. The little girl sniffs, then begins to cry again.

"Captain Brass is coming now," the clerk says, and looking over at her Sara nods her head.

Nick walks over, places his hand on Sara's arm. Vartann's hovering nearby. "You okay?" Nick asks quietly.

Their gazes meet and she nods at him.

"You want me to stay?"

She musters a smile and shakes her head. "Jim's coming. We'll be fine."

Nick glances at the family with compassion, then nods his head and patting her warmly on the arm again leaves. Sara looks all around at the people staring in the busy hall and indicates that the family should follow her to somewhere quieter. The mother hesitates, then holds out her hand and throwing a quick glance at her brother the little girl takes it. Brass meets them half-way down the corridor and takes them to his office.

"My name is Captain Brass," Brass says, addressing the mother.

The woman nods. "I am Señora García. Teresa García." And then looks at her son meaningfully.

"My mother doesn't speak much English," the boy says, stepping forward. "But she understands some. And I can translate."

Brass nods, opens his hand to the two chairs in front of his desk, then glances at Sara pointedly.

"Would you like to come with me and get a soda?" she asks, holding her hand and smiling at the little girl.

The little girl's eyes widen with fear. She takes a step closer to her brother and shakes her head vigorously. She looks petrified, and Sara knows that there is a story there, that it would be a mistake to separate her from her family. Sara looks over at Brass who shrugs his shoulders.

The woman and the boy both sit down on a chair while the little girl climbs onto her brother's lap. The tenderness and ease of the gesture makes Sara wistful. She reaches for a box of tissue from the shelf and pulls out a wad she gives the little girl to wipe her nose with.

"My name is Matías," the boy says in faultless but heavily accented English. "This is my little sister, Valeria," he adds, giving his sister a hug. "We saw Daniela's photo on the television and came."

Brass nods, closes all the blinds around his office and then sits down at his desk. "Mr García isn't here?"

"My father's dead," Matías replies. He opens his mouth to say more, but a sharp look from his mother cuts him short.

Brass nods, flicks through files piled up on the side of his desk and pulls one out. He opens it and hesitates. "Mrs García, are you sure you want your daughter to stay for this?"

Matías translates, then Mrs García looks over at her daughter and pats her on the arm. "She stay," she says in English.

Brass glances at Sara standing slightly back, retrieves the photofit from the file and after a moment's hesitation places it in front of the Garcías. Mrs García brings her handkerchief to her mouth and starts to cry again while the little girl buries her face in her brother's shoulder.

Sara pinches her lips, quickly looking away from the photo. She doesn't need to see it; the girl's face is forever etched in her mind. The brother is the only one who can look at the photo and keep his composure.

"Is this Daniela?" Brass asks softly. "Is this her?"

"Yes," Matías says decisively, "It is her."

"You're absolutely sure?"

Matías nods, and when Brass turns toward her for confirmation Mrs García nods too.

Brass sighs, then swaps the photograph for another one in the file. "Is this hers?" he asks, pointing at the hair barrette, and gets a positive reply. He does the same with a photo of the crucifix but by now there aren't any doubts. Their Jane Doe is sixteen-year-old Daniela García. More tears and lament ensue, and a pained Sara pushes the box of tissues toward the family.

Mrs García says something in Spanish, and Matías immediately translates it. "What happened to her?"

Brass and Sara share a look. He glances at the little girl uncertainly, visibly unsure of how much she should be allowed to hear. "We found your sister's body buried in a roadside ditch outside of Vegas. She'd been strangulated."

Matías swallows, turns to his mother who shakes her head, seemingly not needing translating.

"Who did this to her?"

"We don't know," Brass says. "We recovered very little evidence. How long had Daniela been missing?"

Mother and son share a look. Neither answers.

"Diez días," the little girl says, her voice so quiet and tight with emotion that Sara barely hears it. "Ten days," she says again, turning toward Sara. "I counted."

Sara swallows back her pain. "You and her were close, huh?" she asks softly.

Valeria nods her answer into her brother's shoulder.

Sara sighs, then does some quick math. "That means she went missing on the twelfth of this month," she tells Brass, and then addressing the little girl again, "When did you last see Daniela? What time of day was it? Did she say if she was going somewhere?"

Valeria shrugs, and Sara can't be sure if it's because she doesn't know or is scared to answer. Sara favours the latter. Her eyes become distant as she thinks of Grissom. In her eyes he too is missing, and just like Valeria she's been counting the days.

Brass tries a different approach. "You didn't file a missing person report," he says, keeping his tone gentle and non-accusing. "Why not?" His eyes go from son to mother and back again. "Why not report she was missing?"

The question hangs in the air for a long moment until Sara figures out the answer. "Because they're here illegally," she says at last.

The Garcías all turn toward her at once. There is fear in their eyes, in the way their bodies stiffen and the boy tightens his hold around his sister.

"Where are you from?" Brass asks, and when he gets no reply, "Where are you staying? Here in Vegas? Daniela was found near Jean, sixty miles south of here. Is that the place you're staying at?"

Mrs García speaks in Spanish, tells her son not to answer, and he doesn't.

Silence stretches between them until Brass says, "Listen, Mrs García. I'm sure you want to know who killed your daughter. I know I do. I'm not going to beat around the bush here. So far we have very little to go on. I need to know where you're staying, the places Daniela visited, that kind of things, so that I can start to make enquiries, show her picture around, see if anybody recognises her. Maybe someone saw her on the day she disappeared. Maybe someone saw her get in a car." He pauses, gives the boy time to translate. "Did Daniela have a boyfriend?"

Whether they don't know, or don't want to tell is never established but Brass hits a wall of silence. When Mrs García eventually stands up, putting an end to the conversation, so do her children. Brass follows their cue and walks round his desk to them while taking a business card out of his pocket.

"If ever you hear of something that could help us, please get in touch," he says, holding out the card to Mrs García. He maintains eye contact with her, but Sara knows it's unlikely they will.

"Thank you," Matías says.

"Sí. Muchas gracias, señor."

Brass nods. "Thank you for coming forward. I know it can't have been easy."

As the trio leaves, Valeria slips her hand into her brother's, glances over and gives Sara a small smile, one Sara is at pains to return.

"Why did you let them go?" she asks, as soon as the door closes on them.

Brass sighs, opens his hands out in a helpless gesture. "As far as I'm concerned they haven't committed a crime. Not in my jurisdiction anyway. Let immigration do their job. Besides if I'd arrested them, well, that was effectively putting an end to the investigation. So far we have nothing but her name, but if the word goes out we're not out to get them, someone might come forward with information."

Sara smiles, nods her head. Brass frowns suddenly, then hurries round his desk and opens the top drawer, removing a pair of tweezers he uses to pick up a piece of paper off the floor. Carefully he opens the paper, reads the information on it then shakes his head and holds it toward Sara so she too can read it.

"See what I mean?" he says.

Sara looks up from the crumpled and dirty flyer advertising a free clinic in North Vegas and smiles. "I didn't see anything," she says, her amazement undisguised in her tone.

"Me either."

"Do you think the boy left it behind?"

Brass shrugs.

Sara pats her pocket for an evidence bag, but Brass is one step ahead. "Do you want me to print it?" she asks.

"And compare the prints to what? The clinic is as good a place as any to start our enquiries," he says, sealing the evidence bag. "It could be a front for something else – trafficking or prostitution. I'll call a friend of mine in vice, see if he knows anything."

It doesn't bear thinking about. Sara nods, then sinks down into the chair Mrs García's just vacated and wipes her hand to her face. This case, the state of her marriage, Grissom's whereabouts, it's all getting too much.

"How you doing, kid?" Brass asks, his tone soft and concerned.

Sara's lip curls up at the moniker. "I'm tired, Jim," she replies, and looks up, "So very tired. I haven't been sleeping well again."

Brass sighs, remain silent.

"It's been so long without any news." Sara shakes her head despondently. "All the wait, the uncertainty…it's killing me. How do I know Gil's not missing? How do I know he's not hurt somewhere, or worse, dead and buried and left to rot in a ditch like Daniela?"

Brass sits down on the chair next to her, reaches for her hands and squeezes them comfortingly. His voice is calm, soothing. "Sara, you got to stop that. Wherever Gil is, I'm sure he's safe." He looks like he wants to say more but doesn't, and simply gives Sara an awkward smile that fails to hit the spot.

She tries to swallow the growing lump in her throat, but in vain. "I miss him so much, Jim," she chokes out. "It tears me apart."

"I know you do, sweetie. I know," he says, looking as glum as she feels. Again Brass's jaw clamps shut. He slowly opens his arms out and when Sara falls into them she can't keep her tears from falling.

**Fade to black.**


	10. Chapter 10

**********************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 13:**

Vartann checks his rearview mirror, slows down and takes a right turn off Calico Vista Boulevard into Pinto Rock Lane. Police radio chatter can be heard in the background. He and Nick aren't talking. Their gazes are intent, scanning house numbers up and down their side of the road for 7949. Nick finally locates the house, points to his right. Vartann looks, then nods and slows right down before stopping across the two cars nosing perpendicular to the curb in front of the one-story house, effectively boxing them in. The backup unit stops directly behind him.

As Vartann and Nick disembark they hear raised voices coming from the house; one voice they recognise as Rodney Carver's, owner of the Corvette, and one other, female, young. Vartann motions for the two officers to go round the back of the house while he and Nick hurry up the drive to the front door. There, they find Carver in full rant and tugging at a young woman's arm. The girl is giving as much as she's taking. She is tall and slim, and wearing skimpy jeans shorts and a T-shirt too large for her, and nothing else.

"I take it Carver didn't find his daughter home studying then," Nick whispers to Vartann.

Vartann's brow arches. "You don't say." And then in a bellow as to be heard over the fracas, "Mr Carver, what are you doing here?"

Carver stops shouting suddenly and turns toward Vartann. He is out of breath and very red in the face. "I've come to get my daughter back."

The girl twists her arm out of Carver's grip. "I'm not one of your possessions," she snarls. "You can't just come here and tell me what to do!"

"Jessica, please," Carver says, exasperated, "It's for your own good."

"My own good?" she exclaims with disbelief. "You have no idea."

"Jessica, please, you don't know the full story. You need to come with me. Home. Now."

Jessica Carver squares her shoulders and crosses her arms. "No. And you can't make me. I'm seventeen – almost eighteen. You can't tell me what to do anymore."

Carver seems to deflate in front of their eyes. The loud music suddenly stops and Tyler reappears at the door.

"Mr Carver, Sir," Vartann says, "Can you take a step back please? It's out of your hands now; let us do our job."

Carver's gaze goes from Vartann to Nick and then back to Vartann, hesitating. Eventually he sighs, nods and steps back.

"Jessica," Vartann looks over at Tyler standing slightly back inside the house, "And I assume you're Tyler, right? Tyler Dawson?" The boy nods his head warily. "I'm Detective Vartann," and then addressing Jessica, "Can you step back inside the house please? We got some question we need to ask you and Tyler."

"What's it about?" Tyler asks.

"Please," Vartann tries again, "It's either here or at the station."

"The station?" Jessica exclaims. "Why? We haven't done anything." She turns toward her father, raises a finger at him. "I hope you didn't call them. If you called the effing police on Tyler, I swear―"

"It's not about you, all right?" Carver exclaims. "The 'Vette was stolen from the garage."

Jessica's lip curls into a smile. "And you think we had something to do with that?"

Vartann takes a deep breath, cuts in before Carver can reply. "Can we take this inside? Please?"

Jessica sighs, glances at her boyfriend and then grudgingly nods her head. Carver goes in next, then Nick and Vartann. "Mr Carver, Jessica is seventeen so legally I can question her without you or a child advocate being present. Do you understand me?"

Calmer now, Carver lowers his gaze and gives a nod.

"Is this just the two of you in the house?" Vartann asks as they all file inside, and takes a good look around. The house is clean, tidy and nice - nothing ostentatious, but cosy. He touches Nick on the arm and points at school books spread out on the dining room table. Jessica did stay behind to study after all, just not where she'd been expected too.

"Mom's still at work and my brother's out," Tyler replies, as he and Jessica sit on the couch but keep a chaste distance apart while Mr Carver begins pacing the room restlessly. Tyler's throwing uneasy glances in his direction.

Vartann sits down too, right on the edge of one of two armchairs. "How old are you, Tyler?"

Tyler swallows. "Eighteen."

"What do you do?"

"I'm a freshman at UNLV."

"But you live at home."

He nods. "It's easier, and cheaper."

Nick pushes himself up from where he was leaning against the wall. "You mind if I take a look around?" he asks Tyler, his voice soft.

Tyler frowns, but nods his head and Nick goes off.

"So, you and Jess, you've been here since yesterday, right?" Vartann starts.

Tyler and Jessica share a look. Tyler shrugs. "I came at about five," Jessica says. "And the car was definitely there when I left."

"And you were gone all night? You never went back?"

Jessica glances at her father and shakes her head. "We always stop on the way back from grandma and grandpa for dinner," she defends. "I was going to come home at about six tonight. You needn't ever know."

Carver scoffs, mutters something under his breath and shakes his head. Vartann raises a placating hand at him before he can take it further and another fight ensues.

"So you came here, and then what?" he says.

Again Tyler and Jessica share a look. "We watched some TV," Tyler says.

"Yeah, then Ty cooked and we downloaded a movie. Watched that, and then," she glances at her father, "you know…"

Vartann nods. "So you never went out of the house."

Tyler and Jessica shake their heads in reply.

"Where was your mother during all this?"

"She was out with her boyfriend," Tyler answers. "She came home at about ten."

"That's early, isn't it?"

"She said she had an early meeting this morning. A presentation or something."

"And your brother?"

"He was out too, you know…"

Vartann smiles and shares a look with one of the officer standing at the front door. "Yeah, I know," he sighs.

"We heard him come home at around midnight," Jessica says. "We were in bed."

Knowing the comment was meant for her father, Vartann ignores it. "So until ten pm, you were here alone."

Tyler thinks about it, then nods. "Pretty much, yeah. Why?"

"We think Mr Carver's Corvette was stolen from the garage between five when Jessica last saw it and seven pm," Vartann says. Jessica's eyes snap to her father; Vartann could swear there's the ghost of a smile on the girl's lips. The smile disappears as soon as Vartann mentions the car was used in a robbery and then in the subsequent fatal hit-and-run.

"We don't know anything about that," she says heatedly. And then to her father, "Is that what you told them? That we took your precious car?"

Vartann interrupts before Carver can answer. "Tyler?" he asks.

"I told you. We stayed here."

"Yeah, watching TV," Vartann says, his tone showing irritation for the first time.

"Well, we were doing more than that, but yeah."

"Here's the deal," Vartann says, "whoever stole the Corvette let themselves into the house with the keys, knew the code to disable the alarm and then used the spare car keys kept on the hook in the laundry room to get the car out of the garage. Then they put the alarm back on and locked everything up the way they found it. You see what I'm saying?"

Tyler swallows. "It wasn't us. I swear."

Vartann nods. Years of experience tell him the kids' visible shock at what's happened is genuine. But still. "Have you and Jessica ever, you know…had a little fun in the backseat of the Corvette?"

Tyler swallows, lowers his gaze before giving Jessica a quick glance.

"It was a hand job, all right?" Jessica says, more to her father than to anybody else, "So get over it!"

"Jesus," Carver mutters and sits down heavily on the second armchair.

"It was this one time," Tyler explains. "But the car stayed in the garage, I swear. We never took it out."

Vartann sighs, nods. Any prints and the semen recovered in the vehicle were circumstantial and could not be used to tie Tyler or Jessica to anything pertaining to their case. If only Nick could find the ball cap or the mask, the black clothes worn on the night…

"Now is the time to come clean," he insists.

Jessica's hand slips into Tyler's. "We didn't do it," she says.

Nick re-enters the room. He is carrying a large evidence bag. "I found the mask," he says.

"The Batman masks?" Vartann exclaims with surprise.

"Yep," Nick replies, "And lots of black clothes. Some clean, some not so much. I found a whole collection of ball caps but none matching our description."

"The witness could be wrong on that," Vartann remarks. He sighs, then turns to Tyler. "We got a warrant to take your mask and clothes," he says, looking almost ambivalent.

"I don't understand. You want to take my mask?"

"And the clothes," Nick says. "It's evidence."

"But I've had it years," Tyler says with disbelief. "My dad got it me. I wear it every Hallowe'en. It's a family tradition. I got a matching cape. You want to take that too?" he adds petulantly.

"Don't take that tone with us," Vartann says quietly, "because right now it's not looking good for either of you."

"How do you mean?" Carver exclaims. "I told you Jessica had nothing to do with this."

"I don't agree," Vartann says. "Your daughter had the house keys, the alarm code and knew where to find the spares. In my book that's accessory."

"But she wasn't in that car," Carver defends. "That CCTV photograph you showed me. She wasn't there!"

"We'll talk about it more at the station, sir. For the moment they're both coming with us." Vartann motions for a uniformed officer come forward to handcuff Tyler, and he reads him his Miranda rights. Tyler is compliant. Jessica is crying now, in turn maintaining their innocence and pleading with her father to do something about it.

"Can I call my mom?" Tyler asks.

"You can do that at the station," Vartann says curtly.

As Vartann, Nick and the officers escort a handcuffed and bewildered Tyler out of the house, a car pulls up at the curb. A young man gets out of the passenger side, slams the door. He's wearing sports gear and carrying a sports bag and a six-pack of beer. The car pulls back out into the road.

He frowns. "Tyler? Hey, what's going on?"

"Call Mom. They're arresting me! But I haven't done anything."

The brother swallows, turns toward Vartann. "What are you arresting him for?"

Vartann holds up three fingers, then lowers one down with each charge. "Theft of a motor vehicle, aggravated robbery and reckless driving causing death. He's looking at one to six years in a state prison."

"It wasn't me. I didn't do anything."

**Fade out.**

**********************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 14:**

Sara turns the hot water tap off, grabs a towel and steps out of the shower. After what happened in Brass's office she asked DB is she could clock in for shift a couple of hours late. Showing understandable concern DB granted her request without questions, told her to take as long as she needed, that she's already made up for the hours that very morning.

She feels better for her nap, feels refreshed by her shower. The phone ringing from next door startles her. She pauses in her movement and lowers the towel from her face, then wraps herself in it and walks over to the phone in the bedroom. By the time she gets to it the answerphone has clicked on and the message is playing.

She glances at the bedside clock, 9.45 pm, sits at the edge of the bed and listens to her own monotonous voice on the recording. Her hand lowers to the receiver but she doesn't pick up. She will if it's DB or Brass with news on their case. The beep sounds. She hears a muffled sound as if the caller is about to hang up, but then silence stretches on and Sara knows whoever is calling is still there. Goosebumps prickle her skin. Hurriedly she snatches the phone off its cradle and connects the call.

"Who is this?" she calls in a voice too loud, and then when she gets no reply, "Gil, is that you?"

Again there's no reply but she hears a fraught intake of breath no louder than a gasp and she knows it's him.

Tears fill her eyes. "Say something, Gil, please," she says, thinking of all the things she really wants to ask him but isn't strong enough to voice. How are you? Where are you? When are you coming back? Are you even coming back? Why are you calling now, after all this time with no news and when I feel my lowest? When again silence stretches between them, anger flares inside her.

"Don't call again," she says, and hangs up on him. And immediately regrets it.

**Fade to black.**

* * *

A/N: You would not believe how much restraint I had to show, how hard it was for me not to have him utter her name, a breathless "Sara" that would have conveyed so much… As it stands we can't even be certain that it was him and not some pervert getting off on the sound of random women's voices.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: This is my last posting for a while as I'm off on holidays. I'll do my best to update at least once while I'm away. Thank you as always for reading and reviewing.

* * *

**************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 15:**

"I heard Vartann's got the daughter's boyfriend in custody?"

Nick turns, sighs and finishes stirring the cup of coffee he's just poured himself. "Yeah, he has," he says, taking his cup to the table.

Greg nods and moves over to pour himself a coffee.

"We arrested the daughter too," Nick adds. "They had opportunity, means, each other as alibis. He kind of fits the description too. I found black clothes, the rubber mask in his room; he even confirmed it was his. Everything's pointing at him, but―"

Greg looks over his shoulder. "You don't think he did it."

Nick shrugs. "I don't know. He doesn't have any outward signs of injuries, no limp, no chemical burns on his skin from the airbag deploying or bruising on his chest from where the seatbelt would have restrained him."

Greg joins Nick at the table, takes a seat across from him. "Well, we know he wore gloves and long sleeves. As for the rest, it'd depend on how fast he was travelling."

"I know. He gave us a sample of his DNA which is being compared to the DNA we got from the airbag, so we'll know soon enough." He pauses, takes a sip of coffee.

"What about the clothes?" Greg asks. "Anything on them?"

"No so far, but I've only done half of what I collected. Some of the clothes I'm not even sure are his. It's taking _freaking_ ages, man. You're welcome to help if you want."

"I think I'll pass," Greg replies with a wide smile, "Your turn to do some of the hard graft for a change. My butt's still numb from all the video watching I did last night. I got my hands full anyway."

Nick scoffs, then sips at his drink. "Oh, you got your hands full, alright."

"With what?" Sara asks as she comes into the room and heads straight for the fridge.

Greg's eyes widen and he shakes his head at Nick.

"Nothing," Nick says pleasantly.

Sara sits down next to Greg, takes the lid off a yogurt pot and dips her spoon in it. She begins to stir but then stops mid-move. She's looking distracted, downcast even. Even Greg notices something's not right with her and watches her with the same concern Nick is showing. They share a look, shrug their shoulders.

"How did it go this afternoon?" Nick asks her.

Sara looks up at Nick with a start. "This afternoon?"

"Your Jane Doe."

"Oh." Sara's eyes lower to her yogurt, and she resumes stirring. "We got a positive ID," she says, bringing a spoonful of yogurt to her mouth, and goes on to explain why her family hadn't reported Daniela missing, how they came about the name of the free clinic in North Vegas and Brass's theory about a prostitution or trafficking ring.

"That took some guts," Greg says. "Coming forward, I mean."

Sara nods. "Brass's put out some feelers. We'll see what comes of it. It's up to PD now."

Nick nods, lowers his eyes and finishes his drink. He can't help thinking that Sara should be more upbeat about getting an ID for her Jane Doe, even if the circumstances are unpleasant and the likelihood of getting a conviction for her murder slim. Something else is weighing on her mind; that much is clear. "Greg and I," he says out of the blue, and looks up at her, "we're meeting for breakfast after shift―"

"We are?" Greg's surprise is evident in his tone.

Nick narrows his eyes at him, and then with a smile to Sara, "You coming with?"

Sara shrugs, and Nick knows she's looking for a way out.

"My shout," he adds before she can turn the offer down.

"All right!" Greg exclaims, rubbing his hands together in an overzealous display that brings a smile to Sara's face.

"All right," she says eventually, her smile widening, "If you're buying. It's not like I have anything better to do anyway."

Nick watches her closely. "I'll ask Finn if she wants to come along, even out the numbers a little."

Sara nods, smiles and Nick beams at her. Greg's phone beeps with a text message. He checks it and pushes to his feet. "Hodges," he says, downing the last of his cup of coffee. "I'd better not leave him waiting." He winks at Sara and saunters out of the break-room.

"What about your cup?" Nick calls after him in good-humour, "Who's going to put it away?" but gets no reply.

Sara's smile lingers on her face as she turns her attention back to her half-eaten yogurt, before it vanishes altogether and her perpetual frown returns. Her eyes take on a distant turn, and it's not long before she looks troubled and conflicted again.

Once again Nick wonders if Finn is right, whether Grissom's absence is still taking its toll on her after all these months. Maybe he should say something, ask if she's heard from him. He almost asks how she's doing, but conscious that she'll give him her stock answer reaches for her hand on the table instead. He squeezes it warmly, and she looks up at him with surprise, gives him a smile.

"Sara," he says, giving her hand a gentle pat, "You know you can talk to me, right? If something's bothering you then…" Nick's words tail off when Sara's gaze suddenly whips to the door. Letting go of her hand, he turns toward the door and watches Mandy rush determinedly toward them.

She stops at the break-room door, breathless and papers in hand. She glances toward Sara and hesitates. "Nick," she says, her tone earnest and urgent, "Greg said I'd find you here. I know you're on your break but…" She pauses to catch her breath, "I need to talk to you. It's urgent."

Nick gives her an easy smile. "Sure, what's up?"

Her eyes flick over to Sara, then back to his face, the message in them clear, but left unspoken. "In private?"

Nick's smile fades. It's not like Mandy to act like this, all secretive and cagy. She's edgy, clearly uneasy about something. Something she doesn't want to elaborate on in front of Sara. Without another word Mandy turns on her heels and heads down the corridor away from where she came from. Nick turns to Sara, a mixture of puzzlement and concern written all over his face, shrugs his shoulders and then unfolds himself out of his seat.

"Good luck," Sara says, mischief in her tone. "I don't know what you've done, but I've only seen Mandy riled up like this once before…and it wasn't pretty."

"Thanks Sara," he says dryly and puts his and Greg's cups in the sink before following Mandy out. He hasn't got far to go, because as soon as he rounds the corner out of sight of the break-room, he finds the Print tech there pacing the corridor, waiting for him. She opens her mouth to talk, then closes it again and looks all around them. "Let's go somewhere quieter," she whispers even though there's no one around.

Nick's frown deepens. Before he can speak, ask her what the matter is, Mandy has set off again, and Nick has to jog to catch up with her. The door to DB's office is open. Mandy glances in, goes straight in when she finds it empty.

"Sweetie, what's wrong?" he asks, as she quickly closes the door after him, and then in a lighter tone, "What's with all the cloak-and-dagger, huh?"

Mandy blows out a deep breath. "Oh, this is huge," she says, looking distraught.

"Mandy?"

She stares at Nick, then opens her mouth only to close it again and wipes a shaky hand over her face. "Where do I start?"

Nick takes her by the arms to the couch and sits her down. "At the beginning," he says quietly, and lowers himself down beside her.

Mandy takes a breath, nods her head. "I've finally got round to processing the sports bag used in the convenience store robbery." She pauses, and Nick waits with bated breath. "As I expected, I got no usable prints from the bag itself or the handles on account of it being made of canvas, and only smudges over smudges from the zipper pull. Nothing I can use."

"That's okay," Nick says supportively, "don't worry about it. We expected that. We'll get our perp some other way."

"That's not it," she says. "There was one print – a partial on the underside of the plastic window on the name tag."

Nick's brow creases. "Enough to get a match?"

"Enough to get a hit in AFIS."

"Yeah?" Nick's puzzlement intensifies. "But that's great."

Mandy slowly shakes her head at him, then pinches her lips and thrusts the printout she's been clutching all this time at him. "And before you ask," she says in a whisper as he reads, clearly on the defensive, "I checked and rechecked my results. I haven't made a mistake. I wish to God I had but I haven't."

Nick looks up, nods, then reads the results again, needing to make sure. It doesn't make any sense at all. "And you're absolutely sure you lifted that particular print off the bag used in the robbery."

"I'm absolutely sure. It's a partial of his thumb, lifted from the inner side of the plastic window on the name tag."

Nick's gaze drops back to the printout, and he shakes his head. He knows Mandy hasn't made a mistake, or she wouldn't be this upset. "How is it possible?" he wonders aloud, and then silently, _How can Grissom's print be on a piece of evidence recovered at a crash scene and used to commit a robbery?_

"There's more," Mandy says, her tone even more urgent, and Nick refocuses abruptly on her.

"More?"

Her shoulder lifts in an apologetic shrug as she produces a second printout. Nick's eyes widen at the name on the sheet – a rap sheet listing one arrest over seventeen months ago and a subsequent conviction in Jefferson County, Texas.

"You don't think he's involved in the robbery, do you?" Mandy asks, fearful now. "I mean, I don't but―" She stops talking abruptly and shrugs her shoulders. "How can his print be there? There has to be an explanation, right?"

Nick shakes his head, refocuses on her. He is shaken, speechless. He opens his hands in a helpless gesture and drops them again. "There must be," he says.

"Do you think Sara knows?" Mandy's voice is barely above a whisper.

Well, knowing could explain Sara's depressed mood and inability to let go of the relationship. It would certainly explain the breakup of her marriage. "I don't know," he says at last, and lets out a long breath, "I really don't know. But if she does, she never said anything – not to me anyway." He lifts his shoulder. "I don't know."

"You going to tell her?"

"What choice do I have?" He sighs. "But Mandy, you mustn't tell anyone, all right? I mean it. This stays between you and me."

"What about Greg? It's his case too."

Nick slowly shakes his head. "No, not even Greg. Not until I've spoken to Sara. The print is irrelevant to the investigation; we're agreed on that, right? I don't know how it got there, but Grissom can't have put it there, not in the recent past anyway."

Mandy sighs, nods her head. "What am I going to put on my report?"

"Can you hold off on that until I've spoken to Sara? I'll speak to her and we'll go from there."

**Fade to Black.**


	12. Chapter 12

**************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 16:**

Sara's in the locker room getting changed into coveralls. She's feeling sluggish and unmotivated. Her mind isn't on her task, but rather on the call she received before she left for shift. She is sure Grissom was at the other end of the line, could feel it in her bones. But if indeed it was him then why go to the trouble of calling and not talk to her?

She tried reverse calling the number but didn't get anywhere. Using CSI to check her own phone records was tempting but strictly against the rules, although she knew that if she asked him DB would most probably sign off on the request.

"You headed out?"

Giving a start, Sara looks over her shoulder toward Nick standing at the door. "No. I'm going to help Finn in the garage."

Turning back to her task, she slips her stocking feet into her boots and sits down on the bench to lace them up. As she begins on her left boot, she glances up and over at Nick still standing rigid at the door. Looking pale and troubled, he's watching but not seeing her.

"You okay?" she asks, changing foot. "You look like you've seen a ghost."

Nick refocuses suddenly, smiles, then looks left and right down the corridor. "I feel like I have," he says quietly, and comes in fully.

Nick's taciturn mood is out of character and very disconcerting, especially when he was so bright merely twenty minutes previously. With a frown, Sara straightens up and nods to the file in his hand. "Is it your case? Something I can help you with?"

He nods, sits down next to her. "Sara, sweetie," he says, and sighs, "I don't know how to say this, so I'm just going to say it and hope you can shed some light onto the situation because―"

Sara gives an uneasy laugh. "Nick, just spit it out, will you? What is it about?"

Nick nods, pulls out the top document from inside the folder before closing it again. It's a close-up shot of a navy sports bag, a fairly cheap looking canvas bag with no distinctive markings or brand name on it. It doesn't mean anything to her. "This is the sports bag used in last night's convenience store robbery," he explains when she leans down further to check the date and case file number on the photograph.

She looks up. "Greg's case?"

He nods. "We found the bag in mine and Finn's stolen Corvette."

"Oh, that's right," Sara says in a small chuckle, "I heard about that. How dumb do you have to be to leave your stash behind, huh?"

Nick smiles, nods his head. He's looking increasingly more uncomfortable. "Do you recognise it?"

"What, the bag?" Nick nods and Sara frowns, takes a better look at the photograph, scans every inch of it. A few seconds later, she looks back up and shakes her head in answer. "Should I?"

"Maybe. I don't know."

Sara's frown deepens. Well, it isn't hers, that much is sure. "Why?" she asks, suspicious now. "Why are you showing me this?"

Nick sighs. "Mandy found a print on it, a print that shouldn't be there."

"Right," she says, drawing the syllable out, growing impatient at Nick's pussyfooting, "And? Come on, Nick, just tell me what you came to say. Whose print did Mandy find and how does it involve me?"

Nick swallows, watches her with concern. "It's Grissom's, Sara." He pauses. "Mandy found Gil's print on that bag."

Sara's brow creases. She snaps her gaze back to the photograph. "Are you sure?" She feels more than sees Nick's nod. "There must be a mistake."

"There isn't," Nick says, and takes a second sheet out of the file he passes to her. "Mandy checked, and checked again and again," he adds as she reads the printout of Mandy's results. Then he hands her a close-up photo of the print in question and a copy of Grissom's ten-print card.

"Is that the only print on the bag?"

"The only usable one, yes."

Sara's heart is thumping. She scrunches her eyes shut, then reopens them, only to find that Mandy's results are the same. She is staring at a partial print of Grissom's left thumb – the top left quadrant to be exact. "Is that what all that stuff in the break-room was about?"

Nick gives her a silent nod, and Sara returns her attention to the photograph of the bag, stares at the name tag intently, all the while searching her brain as to how Grissom's print could have got on it – and not just anywhere, but on the underside of its plastic window. Could he have touched the window while checking the name on the tag on one of his travels, she wonders? On an airplane? At baggage reclaim when flying in to McCarran? But why would he need to?

Realisation dawns, and she shakes her head in disbelief. "Gil does have a bag just like this one," she tells Nick, "_Did_ have. But it was only a cheap one he'd bought in transit somewhere to replace one of his. Broken zipper or snapped strap, I can't remember."

"Where is the bag now?" Nick asks. "With Grissom?"

Sara shakes her head. "I got rid of it."

"When?"

"Three. Maybe four months ago?"

**Cut to flashback.**

Sara pulls her car up at the kerb just outside the Goodwill Store on West Flamingo in Spring Valley and cuts the engine. She gets out, pops up the trunk and takes out two black trash sacks she carries over to the store front, and then two more. The blue sports bag is peeking out from the top of one of the bags. A clerk comes out of the store, looks at the bags and smiles at Sara.

"I'm not sure it's all good to sell," Sara says, and slides her sunglasses to the top of her head, offering the clerk a warm smile.

"Oh, no, no," the man replies earnestly, "We're grateful for every single donation. Thank you so much."

Sara's smile fades. "It's mostly my…husband's stuff – shoes and clothes, a couple of suits, either outdated or outgrown. Some books." Mostly stuff he never bothered to unpack after we moved to our new house, she thinks, but doesn't tell the clerk.

**End of flashback.**

"So there you have it," she tells Nick at the end of her account. "It's an odd place for a thumb print. He must have left it there when he removed the name card."

She tries a smile, but it comes over as pained and tired, self-pitying even, which she hates. Nick reaches up to her face, wipes his fingertips to her cheek, and she hates that she shed a tear and not realised it.

"It's a fairly sealed area," Nick offers, "which would explain why the print is still there after all this time."

"Do you want me to take a look at the bag to make sure?"

Nick shakes his head. His voice is soft, still showing concern. "No."

Sara nods, averts her eyes to the bank of lockers in front of them. "Who else knows about this?"

"Just you, me and Mandy."

She can feel the weight of Nick's gaze on her as he replies, the weight of his compassion, and she can only give him a nod and a sigh. She knows she should get up and go help Finn, but she feels numb and empty, and so very tired.

"Sara, there's more," Nick says grudgingly, and gently prises the documents she's still clutching out of her hands.

She turns toward him limply. "More?"

He nods. "I'm sorry."

Her gaze narrows. "Regarding Gil?"

Again, Nick nods. "I'm sorry, Sara. I really am."

"What is it?"

"When Grissom's print came up in AFIS, something else came up." Nick's eyes avert. He swallows. "Sara, do you know where Gil is?"

Sara shakes her head. "You know I don't." Her eyes narrow suddenly, suspiciously. "But you do, don't you?"

Nick nods, looks down to his hands and with a drawn-out sigh and a dejected look gives Sara the copy of Grissom's rap sheet. The breath catches in her throat at what she sees, at what she reads, and she finds herself opening her mouth and taking shallow breaths, almost gulping for air like a fish out of water. Grissom's eyes on the police mug shot that sits to the left of the sheet seem to stare straight at her.

She sees deep shame in them, deep sadness and disbelief too, as well as resignation and acceptance of his fate. They stare straight at her as though pleading for forgiveness. Whose, she isn't sure. Even now, even after all this time, she feels as strong a bond for him, as deep a love as she ever did. The ever-present aching in her heart intensifies. Her right hand lifts from her lap of its own accord, her fingers tracing very gently, very lightly, over his face, over the black rings around his eyes, over his nose – black and blue under the bandage, clearly broken.

"I don't understand," she says in a fraught gasp even though she does. What isn't' there to understand? It's all there for her to read. Her eyes are intent on the sheet, scanning every line, checking every detail, rechecking them all, just as she imagines Mandy must have done when she found out, and then Nick, until everything blurs in front of her for the tears building in her eyes.

Shifting closer on the bench, Nick wraps his arm around her shoulder and pulls her to him comfortingly. "I'm sorry, Sar," he says, voice choked with emotion.

Sara nods, swallows again, hard, and finally lifts heartbroken eyes up to him. "Gil's in jail?" she manages at last, so quietly that she isn't sure she even uttered the words, and wipes at the tears spilling over. Her words come in breathless gasps. "All this time…all this time…and I thought…and he kept it from me. He kept it from me," she says again, her words hardening in anger. "Nick, he lied to me."

Choking on the words, she takes a deep breath and stares up at Nick with disbelief, willing him to say that it's all a joke, say something that will snap her out of her nightmare. "I'm sorry, sweetie," is all Nick says again, and tossing Grissom's rap sheet in the air Sara jumps to her feet. Angry tears are coursing down her face as she bangs both fists onto the bank of lockers in front of them and then whips back round.

"So you're telling me that all this time he's been in Texas?" she almost shouts, and with a quick glance to the door checks her tone and starts pacing.

Nick stands up and takes her by the arms. "Sara, you got to calm down."

She turns on him. "Calm down? He killed someone, Nick," she hisses through gritted teeth before slumping down onto the bench, "And he kept it from me."

"It could have happened to any one of us."

"Is that what you tell the victims' families?"

Nick sighs, grudgingly concedes the point with a lift of his shoulder. "They're tougher on this stuff in Texas than here," he says quietly, and Sara nods, numbly, because she knows Nick means well and that it's true. Still, none of it excuses or diminishes what he did to his victim and what he did to her.

"You got to hear his side," Nick tries again.

Sara scoffs. Hear his side? If he'd wanted her to hear his side he'd have told her, rather than break up with her, cut off all contact. Why go to all these lengths to keep what happened from her and deny himself her support and love? Why isolate himself from everyone the way he did?

Everyone?

A wry smile twists her face. No. Not everyone.

Sara wipes her tears, stands up and picks up Grissom's rap sheet off the floor. "Tell Finn I've gone to PD."

**Fade to black. **


	13. Chapter 13

******************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 17:**

Sara rounds the corner to Brass's office at PD and, ignoring the puzzled looks of uniformed officers and other clerical staff watching her march on, barges through his open door. Seething, she is clutching Grissom's crumpled rap sheet in her hand. Brass is at his desk, poring over paperwork, unaware. He's looking tired and dishevelled, his long discarded suit jacket hanging on the back of his chair. His tie is loose and askew, his shirt sleeves rolled up to the elbows.

"You bastard," she says, her eyes full of tears, and when, surprised, the captain looks up slams Grissom's rap sheet down onto his desk in front of him. "Did you know about this?"

In the corridor, a uniformed officer passing by slows down and looks in through the open door. Brass's startled eyes lower from Sara's face to the sheet. He swallows, looks up but doesn't meet her eyes, then sighs and stands up before calmly going to close his door and toggle the blinds shut. One glare through the plate glass window has everyone watching scrambling back to their duties.

"I'll take that as a yes, shall I?" Sara barks, her eyes following his every move. "Jim, how could you keep this from me?"

Brass's moves are slow and measured, deliberate, as though he is playing for time and deciding how best to handle the situation. "Keep your voice down, Sara," he says through gritted teeth as he toggles more blinds, and then a little more softly as he glances round over his shoulder, "Or everyone'll hear you. Is that what you want? For everyone to know? Because that's certainly not what Gil wants."

Hearing Grissom's given name spoken out loud in this context is enough to take the wind out of her sails. She holds a breath and releases it slowly, then closes her eyes and slumps down on one of the visitors' chairs in front of Brass's desk, rubs a tired hand to her eyes. At least Brass didn't bother to play dumb and deny knowing, which is of some comfort. She's been played for a fool long enough.

Brass walks up to her, stops, and after a brief moment of hesitation puts his hand on her shoulder, pats it warmly. "How did you find out?" he asks quietly, walking round his desk when she looks up at him, and sits down. He picks up Grissom's rap sheet, stares at it at length, shakes his head and turns it over.

Sara scoffs. "Does it matter how I found out?" she says, calmer now, her tone less accusatory. She uses both hands to wipe her face, her eyes, realising only then that in her haste to get answers she forgot to remove her coveralls. "Is that all you're concerned about?"

Brass opens out his hands, drops them, and lets out a long breath.

"You lied to me, Jim. You looked me straight in the eye and lied to me." Her voice fades. Her lips pinch as she fights off a fresh wave of tears, in vain, for once again they fall and she wipes at them furiously. "How could you? You're supposed to be my friend. You're supposed to look out for me, remember?"

"I do look out for you," Brass defends quietly, emotionally, "I did." He scratches at his chin, then opens his desk bottom drawer and takes out a bottle of scotch and two small tumblers. Slowly, he uncaps the bottle and pours them both a shot. "Drink this," he says gently, and pushes a glass toward her, "You're shaking."

Sara looks down at her trembling hands, closes them into fists, but makes no attempts to take the glass.

"It'll settle your nerves," he tries again, and downs his own drink in one. "Look, it's already working on mine."

His attempt at levity falls on deaf ears. "I'm still on shift," she replies glumly.

Brass nods, checks his watch, then picks up his phone and dials out. "DB? Jim Brass." A pause while he listens. "Yeah. Listen, Sara's here…with me at PD, helping on the García case. Can you spare her a while longer? She's…" Another pause and he looks up at Sara, shrugs his shoulder. "Yeah, yeah, sure. I'll tell her." Brass puts the phone down, then picks it up again and dials a new number, internal this time. "Captain Brass here. Can you hold all calls to my office? I don't want to be disturbed."

Brass replaces the receiver, loosens his tie knot all the way and takes it off, undoes the top button of his shirt. "Russell says to tell you to make sure you clock off on time."

He waits, and when Sara gives no reply tries pushing her drink a little closer to her. She takes it, grudgingly, brings it to her mouth and then following his earlier cue downs it in one too. She winces; briefly squeezes her eyes shut. The alcohol burns her throat, doesn't numb her pain nearly enough. Brass's brow arches. He reaches for the bottle, makes to refill her glass but Sara covers the tumbler with her hand, and he half-fills his only.

"What do you want to know?" he asks in a sigh, as drink in hand he leans back in his chair.

"What do I want to know?" she repeats, her voice rising in disbelief. "What do I want to know? Who the hell do you take me for, Jim? I'm his wife, goddamn it! How about everything?"

Brass raises a placatory hand. "I'm sorry. That was a dumb question to ask." He takes a sip of his drink, casts his eyes to the middle distance and sighs. "For the record, I thought that keeping it from you was a dumb idea and I told him as much. As for the breakup don't get me started. But his mind was set, and there was no changing it. He thought it was better that way."

Sara opens his mouth to argue, and again Brass lifts his hand, stopping her.

"You want to know everything? Then let me speak. And please don't shoot the messenger."

Sara swallows and looks away, then nods her head and after sipping a little more of his scotch Brass begins.

"It happened a couple of weeks before Christmas – December 12th 2012. The date is forever etched in my mind. It's while he was working in―"

"Port Arthur."

Brass nods. "He was driving home – well, home to his hotel – after a work-related do, a Christmas thing he didn't want to go to in the first place."

Sara is staring unseeingly at Brass's desk as he talks. Her eyes are wide and wet with tears, but she isn't crying. She remembers the do in question, is thinking back to that moment. Grissom had called her before he left, asked her to give him a reason why he shouldn't go. She'd laughed, told him not to be a bore and have fun, that he'd be home soon and that they could have their own little fun.

She'd booked a week off, but he'd called his visit off at the last moment, told her something had come up – an emergency – and he needed to go abroad. How could she be so naïve, so gullible? Without protest, she'd cancelled her vacation time, spent Christmas eve on call covering a badly-depleted shift. Afterwards his phone calls had been scarcer, shorter, tenser, until finally he never came home.

"It was late, dark," Brass goes on, in the same quiet tone, and she refocuses, "he was tired. He ran a red light, broadsided a sedan, killing the female passenger. It was an accident, but he had drunk, not enough to be over the limit, but enough that the jury thought it had impaired him. Grissom agreed – pleaded guilty."

Sara's eyes lift to Brass, pained and disbelieving, but he isn't watching her.

"He was charged with intoxication manslaughter, convicted and is serving a twenty-seven-month sentence at a medium security prison in Texas. It could have been worse, a lot worse, but the fact that despite being injured himself in the crash he called 911 and most probably saved the driver's life, getting him out of the car and giving him CPR, played in his favour."

A tear escapes, and Sara wipes at it. "How…" the word comes out in a hoarse whisper and Sara clears her throat. "How badly was he injured? Gil, I mean."

Brass sighs. "Broken right leg, bruised ribs, smashed-up face, as you saw."

Sara snaps her eyes up, a question in them.

Brass nods his answer. "I saw him once during the trial, and that's it. He was bearing up. He didn't want me to come―still doesn't want me to visit. Said it would be easier for him this way. No one knows, Sara. I went to great length to keep it that way."

More tears flow. "_You_ know. And I should have."

Brass opens his hands in a conciliatory manner. "That wasn't my decision to make."

"Did he tell you, though? I mean, about it all. Did he call to tell you?"

Brass shakes his head. "His attorney called me. Wanted me to testify, put in a good character reference for him, try to get him off on a lesser charge of vehicular manslaughter. I was all for it, but Gil refused. He said he'd done the crime and would now do the time."

Sara takes in a fraught breath. "Are you in touch?"

Brass pauses, sips at his drink as he ponders his answer before eventually nodding his head. "A little. He has email. In prison. He has access to a computer. He's doing okay, Sara."

"Well, I'm _not_ doing okay," she thinks.

"He's adjusted," Brass adds, and Sara can't help thinking that in all this time _she_ hasn't adjusted, not really, "He reads a lot, helps other inmates with their English, with writing letters, legal stuff, official documents, parole applications and whatever else. He's coping, Sara – better than I ever could."

"He's behind bars, Jim," she defends intensely. "He's lost his freedom. He's…caged like the criminals he dedicated his life to putting away. You should have told me all this sooner. You should have let me know. All these times I was pouring my heart out to you, and you kept quiet!" Tears fill her eyes again, and she raises a fist to her chest. "All these times I was breaking a little more―"

"He made me promise, Sara," Brass cuts in heatedly. "What was I to do?"

"Tell me the truth! Choose me!"

Brass blows out a deep breath, tops up his drink, then stands and begins to pace, doesn't respond straightaway. "You're both my friends," he says at last and shakes his head despondently before raising his hands and dropping them helplessly. "You know how I feel about you, about you both. I―I…he made me promise. I'm sorry."

"Well, sorry isn't enough, Jim. It's not enough!" Sara turns away to hide the flow of her tears and repeats in a whisper, "It's not enough."

Brass moves away from his desk to shelves lining the wall and opens a box. "He gave me this," he says and turns toward her, meets her eyes and covering the distance to her holds out a small white envelope. He's looking troubled, apologetic. "He told me to give it to you if you ever found out."

Sara's eyes lower to the envelope shaking in Brass's hand, zoom in onto the "Sara" written in Grissom's neat handwriting on the front. She reaches for it, snatches her hand back hesitantly, before finally taking it and turning it in her hand. It's sealed, perfectly pressed. She looks up at Brass with disbelief, and feels nothing but bitterness and anger toward him, contempt and disgust at his behaviour.

She feels deceived and betrayed, abandoned even, by someone she should have been able to trust. Brass is someone she always looked up to, relied on to do the right thing. He's always been more than a colleague to her, more than friend, more like the father figure she craved for in her life. But Brass is like everyone else. He let her down. He chose Grissom's side, not hers, and her thoughts and feelings are plain for him to see.

He reaches out to her. "Sara…"

Sara shakes her head, takes a step back away from him. Then she glances down at the envelope in her hand, tucks it through the coveralls opening into her pants side pocket. Without another word she turns her back on the captain and makes to leave.

"Oh, and Sara?" Brass calls as she reaches the door. "Just so you know. Gil doesn't know about what happened with Basderic."

Sara pauses, turns toward Brass.

"We all make mistakes, Sara. Some are more costly than others."

**Fade to black.**


	14. Chapter 14

**********************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 18:**

Brass picks up his cell, looks at the display and puts it back down with a sigh. He wishes Sara would return one of his calls. He knows he did wrong by her, but what choice did he have? He did the only thing he could. Grissom needed his help, his situation critical, and he gave it to him any way he could. He doesn't regret what he did, no, not really, and Sara knows it which is why she is so mad at him right now. Maybe _pissed_ is a better word for it.

"Goddamn it Sara," he mutters to himself. "Why do you have to be so stubborn? Why can't you see that I had no choice, that it was the only way?"

She feels betrayed and abandoned, which he can understand. But isn't that exactly how Grissom would have felt if he hadn't helped him? He shakes his head, finishes buttoning up his shirt, tucks it into his pants. After he told Sara the truth, after she left his office, he picked up his phone and almost called Grissom – well, not him personally but someone on the inside not averse to passing on messages. But what good would that do? Aside from unduly worrying Grissom, that is.

If Sara decides to make contact, there's nothing either man can do to stop her. For all he knows, she might not even act on her discovery – which, of course, would be better for everyone concerned. He'd pulled a lot of strings to keep Grissom's name out of the Vegas news at the time, had given the media head honchos a few harmless but juicy tips and scoops in exchange. One Google search though, and everything is out in the open. It's a small wonder, really, that the truth hasn't come out sooner.

Brass moves over to the full-length mirror in his bedroom, raises the collar of his shirt, winces as he does the top button before finally selecting a tie he deftly ties around his neck. He reaches for his jacket, slips it on and with one look in the mirror aligns his tie knot with the shirt collar. There's something about the routine of getting ready for work which soothes him.

He puts his watch on, picks up his car keys he slips into his pocket and then his cell. Before he tucks it away, he checks the display one last time, finds a couple of emails waiting. The first one he ignores, the second one has his heart beat a little faster. He opens the email, sighs at what he reads.

_I made a mistake, Jim. Last night, I called her again. I know I shouldn't have. This time she picked up the phone, and I just…froze. She sounded so…sad, so scared and lonely. So angry. My heart stopped. I couldn't talk, couldn't breathe. She knew it was me, Jim, calling her. She must have guessed – how, I don't know. I'm a coward, but I just…I couldn't. Why is it so damn hard? _

_Anyways, I'm sorry. I'm fine really. Just worried about Sara, how she's coping. I thought it'd have got easier for her by now. Look out for her, will you, like I know you've been doing. _

Brass scoffs, shakes his head dejectedly.

_On a more positive note, my boxing's coming along nicely. You'd be proud. I'm holding my own. Another year to the day, that's what's left, and I'll give even you a run for your money. _

_Keep safe, and please, please, continue to keep Sara safe for me._

_Your indebted friend, _

_Gil._

"Oh, Gil," Brass says in a sigh, and shakes his head again, "If only you knew." He's about to slip the phone inside his pocket when it rings. Thinking it Sara, at last, he connects the call without checking the name on the display.

"Jim," says a gruff male voice, "Dempsey here. My informant's got back to me, got a tipoff on your dead girl's case."

Brass's brow lifts. "Yeah?"

"Yep. And you're going to like it. How about you meet me at the clinic?"

It takes Brass a moment to keep up with his colleague from Vice. "The free clinic on McDaniel Street?" He checks his watch, hurries over to the bedside table and opens the drawer he keeps his holstered gun in. "But won't it be shut at this time of night?"

"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"

"I'll be there in twenty."

**Fade to black.**

**********************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 19:**

"Hey, Sara, you're here early."

Sara looks round from her locker with a start, smiles at Morgan. "I could say the same about you."

Morgan opens her locker, tidies her purse inside it, does the same with her jacket. "I wanted to catch up with my emails before shift. You know what it's like. You go away for a few days and your inbox is full."

Sara nods, turns back to her locker and slips Grissom's note back inside her purse. She still hasn't read it, hasn't found the strength to even open it. Physically spent after her altercation with Brass she drove straight home, undressed on autopilot and slipped inside the sheets without even showering. Unsurprisingly sleep hadn't come, and she lay curled up on her side with her eyes closed, crying, for a long time, until finally she'd got up, sat at her desk and stared at his letter with trembling hands.

She'd booted up her laptop, googled his name and Port Arthur, Texas, had found a few newspaper articles about the crash, read about the lady that had died. Then she'd looked up Beaumont medium security federal correctional institution, its visiting information, the temptation to book a flight to Houston and leave there and then almost overwhelming.

But then what? Confront him? Demand an explanation, an apology? Would she even be allowed access to the prison? And if she was, would he agree to see her? Could she stand another rejection? After all, visits are only permitted to individuals appearing on an inmate's approved visiting list, or so she read. And somehow she doubts she is on his; that is, if he has one.

"How was LA?" she asks, because Morgan doesn't know, because she doesn't suspect anything is amiss, because life must go on as it has done for the last fifteen months.

"Same old, same old," Morgan replies breezily and shuts her locker. "Caught up with my mother, friends, you know."

Sara's smile fades, but she nods her head nevertheless.

"I'll catch you later," Morgan says, leaving.

Sara forces a smile, manages a nod. Her cell vibrates in her pants pocket. She pulls it out, sees Brass's name on the display and sighs, doesn't connect the call. It's not the first time he's called, has stopped leaving messages she's deleted without listening to. His betrayal still feels too raw, too painful. An apology, however well meant, isn't what she wants to hear. The call goes to voicemail, immediately gets disconnected. She's putting her phone away when Nick comes in, briefly stopping at the door when he sees her. He looks surprised to see her there.

He watches her carefully before coming in fully, and cracks a smile she returns. "You okay?" he asks and opens his locker door.

She gives a definite nod. "I will be."

"Brass had the answers you needed?"

She lifts a shoulder, averts her gaze. It's answer enough.

"Want to talk about it?"

Sara gives him a smile, shakes her head.

Nick removes his jacket, puts it away and turns toward her. "I've been worried, Sara. You've not returned any of my calls."

She closes her locker, ready to go. "I'm sorry. I―I just needed a little time to myself." She pauses, meets his gaze and holds it. "You've…spoken to Mandy?"

"I have. It's all sorted. Obviously she had to include the print in her report and the explanation for why it was there, but nothing more."

"Thanks, Nick," she says, relief evident in her tone. She knows it won't go any further, that DB will keep it quiet.

"Don't mention it." He pauses, releases a breath. "On the off chance, I swung by the Goodwill store on my way home this morning, asked if they remembered selling the bag. I figure maybe our perp only bought it recently. So I showed the manager a picture of our likely suspects, but she didn't recognise either, doesn't remember the bag in question at all. She said she'd ask the volunteers who take turns manning the store, call if she got anything. The store has one CCTV camera trained on the register and that's it, but you never know."

"Buying the bag doesn't necessarily mean robbing the store."

"I know, but it's a lead." Nick turns back to his locker and closes it. Together they head out, take a left toward the break room. "You…going to take some time off?"

Sara frowns. "Time off?"

He shrugs. "You know, to go see Grissom. I don't mind covering for you."

Sara stops in her tracks and Nick follows, turning toward her. "Thanks, Nick," she said, quickly scanning her eyes up and down the corridor, but they're talking in hushed tones and no one is near enough to hear, "I really appreciate the offer but that won't be necessary. He doesn't want to see me."

Nick's brow rises in surprise. "You've called him, then. Spoken to him? How is he?"

Sara shakes her head. "I don't know how he is. I haven't spoken to him."

Nick frowns, stares at her at length and, when she averts her eyes to hide her pain, reaches out to pat her arm. "I'm here for you, all right?" he says warmly. "Anything you need, you just ask."

Sara musters a smile, covers his hand on her arm, grateful for his quiet support and discretion. A loud rap at the plate glass window beyond has her look up with a start and Nick turn around. Hodges grins at her, then points toward Nick and waves printouts at them. Nick turns back towards her and shrugs.

"I'll save you some coffee," Sara says and quickly walks away.

**Fade to black.**

**********************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 20:**

Nick pops his head round the door to the DNA lab. "Hodges, you're working DNA now?"

Hodges opens his hands out and bows his head. "I'm a man of many talents, as I'm sure you've come to realise over the many years we've worked alongside each other."

Nick pulls a face.

"Henry's off tonight."

"Ah. So, what have you got for me?"

Looking particularly giddy, Hodges sways on the balls of his feet. "I've solved your case." He rubs his hands together, waggles his brow.

"Yeah?" Nick says, deadpan, not rising to the bait. "Let me be the judge of that, will you?"

"As you wish," Hodges replies, but his smug expression belies his words.

Nick can't stop a smile forming at Hodges' smarminess. He shakes his head. "So, let me ask you again. What have you got?"

"The DNA results on the Corvette case. I took a look at it by the way, the car I mean, and wow―"

"David―"

"Sure, sorry." Hodges picks up a result sheet from the counter and gives it to Nick to read. "So?" he prompts keenly, waiting with bated breath for at least a deserved pat on the back.

Nick looks up, shrugs his shoulder, not playing into Hodges' vanity. "I'll let Vartann know."

**Fade to black.**


	15. Chapter 15

**************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 21:**

Brass stretches his right leg into the footwell of the car to ease the stiffness and pulls his already loosened tie. He takes in and releases a long breath, takes his eyes off the target for a brief instant. His days of being cooped up in the cramped front of a police cruiser smelling of cold fries and bitter coffee doing surveillance are long gone, and he doesn't regret them.

Shrouded in darkness, the only light that of a distant streetlamp, he eases a look at his watch – barely an hour has gone by – and reaches over to the backseat for his cell in his jacket pocket. One look at the display tells him what he already knows, namely that Sara still hasn't called. He swaps the phone for a pack of gum, nudges Dempsey's arm with his elbow and offers him a stick. Dempsey glances over, shakes his head and, returning his attention to the clinic's side entrance fifty yard across the street, Brass folds a stick into his mouth.

Up ahead in the distance, a couple rounds the corner, refocusing Brass, then hurries down the sidewalk, past the clinic door and then out of sight. A few minutes later, two young men approach on their side of the road this time, cross over and stop at the clinic door. Brass and Dempsey hunker down in their seat, watch. A black truck turns into the street, headed toward them, its headlights illuminating everything in its path.

The two men turn from the truck and wait until it's gone to knock on the clinic door. No light is visible from inside the building at all, not even when the door seemingly opens for the two men. Ten minutes later they come out, quickly go on their way. This toing and froing – men and women of all ages – has been fairly steady and going on ever since Brass and Dempsey started their stakeout.

"Maybe this has nothing to do with prostitution or trafficking, but with drugs," Brass says.

Dempsey turns toward him, shrugs his shoulder. An old-model dark Cadillac comes up from behind them, its headlights sweeping across the interior of the cruiser, before it stops a little ahead, level with the clinic. Brass watches as a middle-aged woman carrying a sports bag hurries out of the passenger side, immediately opens the back door and helps a heavily pregnant girl out of the backseat.

The girl, young, small and thin despite her huge belly, is panting. She doubles over and holds her stomach, clearly in pain, while the woman is rubbing her hand to the girl's back and talking to her. The clinic door opens. A man wearing pink scrubs comes out, quickly ushers the two inside the building. As soon as the door shuts on the trio, the car pulls back out into the road, its registration fixed in Brass's mind for later verification.

Brass and Dempsey share a look. "CCTV on the door," Brass says, "That's how they know who to let in, and how they knew the girl was there."

Dempsey nods. Shadowed movement down the sidewalk beyond has Brass refocus and narrow his eyes at a boy walking toward them then crossing the street a car-length away. He looks familiar. He's wearing jeans, a sweatshirt with the hood pulled up over his head, high-top sneakers and a backpack over one shoulder. He turns to look over his shoulder. For a split second, Brass sees the boy's face clearly, recognises him.

"I know him," he says in a whisper, and discreetly points toward the boy. "It's Daniela García's brother."

Dempsey glances at Brass. "Your dead girl?"

"Yep."

They watch as Matías casts a furtive look around before knocking on the clinic door and waiting. As before, the door opens and he goes in. "He's the one I think left the flyer in my office putting me on to this place," Brass says.

"I don't recognise him," Dempsey says. "He's not someone I've come across before. You think he's involved?"

"In his sister's murder, or in whatever's going on in there?"

"What if it's all linked?"

Brass considers his reply. "I don't know. The boy I spoke to seemed genuine. Besides, why tip me off on this place if he's involved? Or even come to the station to identify his sister?"

"You'd put her face on the news. Maybe he didn't have a choice."

The two policemen fall silent and wait**. **A few minutes later Matías comes out again, pulls the hood back over his head. Brass and Dempsey share a look, a nod. They've been cooped up too long; a decision is made. They open their doors in unison, get out and noiselessly shut the doors again. Brass walks round the front of the car, follows at a short distance Dempsey crossing over to the other side.

Matías, ten yards or so in front of them, turns around suddenly, panics when he sees Dempsey on his tail. Clutching his backpack closer to him, he quickens his pace, then starts to run and bolts down an alleyway.

"Don't run!" Brass shouts, needlessly, "We just want to talk," and following in Dempsey's footsteps gives chase.

**Fade to black.**

**************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 22:**

Vartann follows the black and white down into Pinto Rock Lane and pulls up behind it outside number 7949. He shuts off his lights, cuts the engine and glances through the rearview mirror at Tyler Dawson sitting at the back. Tyler's eyes are half-shut. Exhausted, the boy is dozing, and Vartann knows that the last twenty-four hours or so have taken their toll on him. Nick and Vartann share a look before they get out and scan quick eyes to the darkened house. The porch light is the only light on, visible from outside anyway. The two uniformed officers accompanying them get dispatched to the back of the house.

Tyler startles awake, tries to get out then bangs his hand to the window when he can't. Vartann lifts his finger at him, indicating that he won't be a minute. He doesn't want to risk spooking the real killer. Then he motions to Nick to stay with the boy, and waits until the officers are in position to go ring the doorbell. Vartann waits, and then rings the bell again, before turning toward Nick and shrugging his shoulders when he gets no reply. He's about to pound his fist to the door when a light finally comes on inside the house, followed shortly after by the one in the lobby.

"Who is it?" a female voice asks loudly, suspiciously.

"It's the police, Mrs Dawson," Vartann replies, keeping his voice low as not to alarm the neighbours, "Detective Vartann. We met at the station yesterday. Sorry to bother you so late in the evening."

The safety chain is put on, a lock is turned, the door opened a crack, and Mrs Dawson pops her head through the gap. "Is it about Tyler?" she asks fearfully. "Has something happened to him?"

"Can I come in, please?"

Mrs Dawson's eyes narrow, and she tries scanning them to a point beyond Vartann but without success. Reluctantly, she opens the door before tightening the belt on her robe.

"Are you alone?" Vartann asks.

"Yes," she says, and then, "Is that Tyler in the car with you?"

Vartann nods, then turns and motions for Nick to let Tyler out. "Tyler is free to come home, Mrs Dawson," he says, offers the woman a tentative smile. "DNA results show he wasn't driving the Corvette when it crashed." Merely that he and Jessica had indulged in a little backseat fun.

"Oh, thank god." Mrs Dawson brings a disbelieving hand to her mouth, then steps past Vartann and gathers her son into a warm embrace, hugging him tightly to her. When she pulls back her eyes are narrowed and she takes stock of the situation again – two squad cars, a CSI and detective, all that to bring her innocent son home. A look of realisation flashing across her face, she refocuses on Vartann. "Thank you for bringing my son home, detective," she says curtly, and pulls Tyler inside the house by the arm before making to shut the door.

"Not so fast, Mrs Dawson," Vartann says, a hand rising toward the door, stopping it from closing.

"What now?"

Vartann and Nick share a look. "Tyler's DNA isn't a match to the DNA I recovered from the airbag in the Corvette," Nick says, "but our results show that whoever drove the car has thirteen common alleles with Tyler."

"Where's Michael?" Vartann asks.

Mrs Dawson stares at Vartann, then at Nick with disbelief. "Mickey?"

Vartann nods. "Our evidence shows that _Michael_ was behind the wheel."

Mrs Dawson's head is shaking. "No, no, no. You arrested one of my sons already," she defends, "Without proof and you got it wrong. Not again."

"We have a warrant," Vartann says, "to collect a sample of Michael's DNA. We'll know for sure then."

Mrs Dawson squares her shoulders. "You're fishing."

"Ma'am," Nick says.

She turns on him. "How do you know the DNA's not mine? How do you know I wasn't driving that goddamn car?"

"Only a full sibling would share so much DNA, Ma'am," Nick supplies helpfully, "and a male one at that. When we arrested Tyler, I collected all the black clothing I could find. One of the sweatshirts showed airbag deployment evidence. The singe patterns are consistent, as is the trace material we found. Tyler confirmed the sweatshirt isn't his, but Michael's."

Mrs Dawson swallows, then turns to her son.

"I didn't know why they were asking, mom, I swear," Tyler defends emotionally.

Mrs Dawson musters a smile, a nod, lifts her hand to stroke his cheek. "I know, baby. I know."

"Are you sure you're home alone?" Vartann asks.

Mrs Dawson turns back, holds his stare. She's looking beaten. She takes a step back and opens the door fully. "You can come and look for yourself if you don't believe me."

Vartann and Nick share a look. "That won't be necessary," Vartann says. "But it would help if you told us where Michael is."

Mrs Dawson's eyes lower.

"Do you know where he is?" he tries again. "It's only a matter of time before we find him anyway."

"I do," Tyler says, "I know where he is," and his mother turns wide eyes onto him.

**Fade to black.**

**************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 23:**

DB turns into the layout room, stops at the threshold. Bent over the table, Sara is sifting through burnt evidence recovered from a house fire. Totally engrossed in her task, she doesn't look up. She pauses to think, absently swipes the back of her hand at a strand of hair that has fallen into her eyes, sighs, then picks up a pen and notes something down. DB's gaze averts as he knocks on door jamb and goes in.

"You almost finished here?" he asks softly.

Sara looks up, nods her head. DB can't help noticing how tired and washed-out she looks. All this stuff with Grissom is getting to be too much for her – and now to top it all off they've gone and found his print on a piece of evidence. Will she ever catch a break, he wonders? "I just need to finish my report and tidy the evidence away. Why?"

"I need you to go over to PD. Brass has someone in custody he wants processed."

Sara's eyes lower. She sighs. "Can't you do it?"

DB registers a look of surprise. It's not like her to turn down a trip to PD. "It's pertaining to Daniela's murder," he says. "I thought you'd want to do it."

Sara immediately perks up, a million and one questions in her eyes.

"All I know is that Brass got a tip-off," he said, smiling at the transformation. "So, you're going to do it, or shall I?"

Without wasting time, she stands up and begins to pack her evidence into boxes. "You try and stop me."

**Fade to black.**


	16. Chapter 16

******************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 24:**

"You think we're too late?" Nick asks as he and Vartann and the two uniformed officer let themselves into CrossFit 702 gym on Washington Avenue, "That his mother or Tyler will have given him a heads-up?"

Vartann shrugs. "His mother maybe, but not Tyler. He was too pissed."

"Wouldn't you be if your brother had let you take the rap for something he'd done?"

"I don't have a brother," Vartann retorts flatly.

The four men step into the main hall, look around. The gym is busy, but not packed. Patrons sense something is amiss and pause in their workouts. Heads slowly come up, one after the other, and stare with puzzled expressions. Nick and Vartann scan the various faces, come up blank. A man in shorts and a vest that says "Boss" walks up to them from one of the weightlifting machines, wipes his sweaty face and neck on a hand towel. Nick and Vartann share a look that says, "If it's on the tee-shirt then it must be true."

"How can I help you guys?" the man asks.

Vartann shows his badge, gives his name and title. "We're looking for one of your personal trainers," he says, jovially enough. "Michael Dawson? We were told he'd be working here tonight."

"I'm the owner. What's it about?"

"Is Michael here?" Vartann tries again, his tone losing all trace of friendliness.

The man hesitates, eventually turns to his left, and addresses another trainer. "Mickey, is he still with Paulie?"

The woman shrugs her shoulders, clearly knowing but unwilling to answer.

"Come with me," the man says in a sigh, and starts crossing the room over to a corridor. "I don't want no trouble with the law."

"And you won't get any from us," Vartann says, following. "We appreciate your cooperation."

The guy nods his head, leads them down a dimly-lit corridor. He opens his mouth, but then thinks better than asking and stops at a closed door. "He should be in there."

Vartann motions for the two uniformed officers to stay put before undoing the press-stud on his gun holster and nodding his head at the door. Nick opens the door to grunting and the muffled sound of glove hitting padding and after a quick look in Vartann goes in, followed by Nick and the owner. Michael is standing in the middle of a raised boxing ring holding two bulky hook and jab pads a big, burly man is steadily punching. Wearing matching head guards, neither man has heard them come in.

"Michael?" Vartann calls loudly so as to be heard, and approaches the ring, "Michael Dawson? Can we have a word, please?"

Both men drop their stance and turn toward the trio. Michael's eyes widen as he realises what's happening. _A guilty mind will make him run_, Nick thinks and right on cue Michael drops the pads, looks left then right and makes a dash across the ring in the opposite direction, swiftly slipping between the ropes and out of sight.

Nick and Vartann immediately take off after him, Vartann calling to the officers waiting at the door to follow. By the time they've drawn their guns and run around the ring Michael has slipped out through a fire exit at the back. When the two men come out Michael is nowhere to be seen. The back alley that runs either side of the door is poorly-lit, but deserted and totally silent.

Nick and Vartann stop, scan the area closely and listen for tell-tale noises. The two unis join them, guns raised too. Vartann motions toward a couple of dumpsters sitting side by side a little to their right, and stealthily they make their way over to them. Nick and one officer go left, Vartann and the other right.

His face twisted with anger, Michael jumps out from behind the right dumpster and lunges at Vartann, shoulder charging him in the chest, sending the gun and its owner flying. Nick backpedals and, while one officer checks on Vartann and calls for backup, takes off full pelt down the alleyway after Michael, with the second officer in tow.

"Stop right now," Nick shouts breathlessly as he starts to gain ground, "There's nowhere for you to go."

But Michael thinks differently. He rounds the corner into the main road, then turns to look over his shoulder to check on Nick's progress and trips, not enough to make him fall but enough to slow him down and allow Nick to catch up to him and tackle him to the ground. Both men fall hard. Breathing hard and the first to recover, Nick pushes to his feet and draws his weapon again, Michael squarely in his sights.

"Don't move," he pants. "Don't you dare move a muscle. You're not getting away this time."

Beaten, Michael complies. The two officers arrive, quickly followed by Vartann, all breathing heavily. Michael is quickly handcuffed, roughly brought up to his feet. The head guard is removed from his head. The charges against him are read, as are his Miranda rights, and to the sound of approaching sirens he is led away.

"He caught me by surprise," Vartann tells Nick afterwards, his shoulder rising awkwardly.

A broad smile breaks on Nick's face. "That's what Greg said," he says, and slaps his colleague hard on the shoulder, hard enough to make him wince in pain. "Except in his case it was a she."

**Fade to black.**

******************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 25:**

Field kit in hand, Sara knocks on the interview room door at PD and goes in without waiting for a reply. She nods at the guard on duty at the door, looks over to the boy sitting at the table across from Brass and registers a look of surprise she quickly covers when she recognises Daniela's brother. Matías looks up, his eyes brightening slightly when he sees her. Brass stands and motions for her to follow him back out of the room, that he wants a word before she starts.

"I thought DB was coming," he says, shutting the door after him.

"Well, you got me," Sara says tersely, barely meeting his eyes.

Brass tries a smile, nods. "Well, I'm glad." He opens his mouth to say more, only to close it again.

"Is he a suspect?" Sara asks, nodding toward the closed door, needing to keep their interaction strictly professional.

Brass steers her away. "In his sister's murder?" he answers finally, and turns toward the two-way mirror looking into the room. "No." Then he fills her in on the details of the stakeout, the subsequent arrest, not intended to be an arrest until the boy took a swing at Dempsey. "We searched his bag for drugs, found none, and there's no way he could have ditched them before we caught him. He claims he only went to the clinic to ask about Daniela. When we asked him why he thought Daniela's death had something to do with the clinic he clammed up. Trust is visibly an issue here, which―"

Realising what he's just said, Brass stops mid-sentence and stares at Sara dolefully before quickly averting his gaze back to the mirror. A word from her, she knows, would appease his conscience, but Sara can't bring herself to say it. It's still too soon.

"What do you think's going on there?" she asks instead.

Brass shrugs, keeps his eyes averted. "I don't know. Drugs most definitely. Dempsey thinks pharmaceuticals illegally brought in from Mexico. There's a lot of that about at the moment. Prostitution, trafficking, we've no evidence of." He turns toward her. "We watched the place for almost two hours, didn't witness anything in that respect. Dempsey's going to put a team together, carry out more surveillance on the place."

Sara nods. She doesn't know Sergeant Dempsey well, but believes him to be old-school and straight up, just like Brass. "Where's Dempsey now?"

"He's been called away, some other case he's working on."

"Is he going to file charges?"

"On the boy? No. He was kind of hoping to turn him into an informant, someone in the community who'd keep his ear to the ground, so to speak."

She sighs, glances at Matías slumped at the table, looking dejected. "So what do you want me to do?"

"Just your job. Go through the motions: print him, swab him, fingernail scrapings, whatever. Make it look like we're going ahead with the arrest. Take your time. You two seemed to have built a rapport the other day in my office, maybe he'll talk to you."

"You mean, if you're not there."

Brass shrugs. "I tend to scare people whereas you…well, you have a pretty face." His clumsy attempt fails to raise a smile. "I thought I'd watch through the mirror," he adds, serious again, "but I'll leave Alvarez at the door just in case he tries anything."

Sara stares at Matías through the mirror. "He won't," she says with conviction. "He's scared, that's all." Without another word or look at Brass, she picks up her field case and makes her way into the interview room. "Hola, Matías," she says and smiles when he looks up at her. "¿Cómo està?"

Matías's eyes lower. He shrugs his shoulder.

"Dumb question, huh?" Sara says pleasantly.

"At least, you're trying."

Sara's smile widens and she sets her case on the table. "The American dream's not what it's cracked up to be?"

"Something like that."

Sara turns her attention to her equipment and takes out the live scan fingerprinting reader. "I'm very sorry about your sister," she says, keeping her eyes lowered as she switches the machine on. "I can tell you were very close." She looks up and Matías swallows, nods his thanks. "How's Valeria coping?"

Matías stiffens. "Fine."

Sara nods, moves closer to him. "May I have your right hand, please?"

Matías hesitates but eventually lifts his right hand from his lap. It's shaking. Sara takes it and gently begins scanning each finger into the machine.

"No ink and paper?" he asks, surprised.

Sara looks up, meets his curious gaze. "Not anymore. It's a lot cleaner and more accurate too." She pauses, turns the scanner toward him so he can see for himself.

"I'm all arches," he says, a rare smile forming as he glances up at Sara with wonder.

Sara's brow rises in surprise. "You know about fingerprints?"

As if he's disclosed too much, Matías averts his eyes, shrugs his shoulder, once again closing up. Sara pauses, then slowly puts her equipment away and sits down across from him. "You're an intelligent boy," she says, stopping all pretence, "You know why I'm here. And you also know I'm not a police officer. I'm a scientist. I―"

"You look for evidence to solve crimes."

"That's right," she replies, her voice as soft as her smile, "That's what I do." She pauses, pinches her lips. "I found Daniela in that shallow grave in the desert at the side of the road. I helped free her. I gave her a face so that we could find out who she was and what happened to her, so that we could find you."

Matías has tears in his eyes he doesn't try to hide. "I'm not a criminal," he says. "I'm a hard-worker. I can't go to school so I go to the library to study, but no one'll give me a job so I can earn money. No one gives us a chance. I didn't kill my sister, if that's what the captain thinks."

"He doesn't think that," Sara says, putting as much conviction into her voice as possible, "And neither do I. Captain Brass just believes you know who did."

Matias's expression darkens. "I don't. If I did they'd be dead already."

"You just said you weren't a criminal," Sara remarks softly.

Matías averts his gaze. "I don't know who killed Daniela," he says, "But I suspect. I heard things, bad things they do to girls."

Sara swallows back the clichéd images that fill her mind – drugs, prostitution, trafficking, the list is long and not pretty.

"The girls, they're young," Matías says before Sara can voice her next question. "Daniela's age, sometimes even Valeria's. These…men, they seduce them, do things to them, get them pregnant." He wipes at the tears in his eyes. "It's very shameful. Afterwards they take the babies and sell them for mucho dinero."

Sara's face is twisted with disgust as she realises that Matías is talking about baby trafficking. "But Daniela wasn't pregnant," she says, puzzled.

"No. Daniela, she's not like the other girls. She's not been with men. She's not interested. But one of her friends…" he pauses, shakes his head, "Daniela she thought it wasn't right. She wanted to go to the police, but mi madre, she said no. Too dangerous. And then she didn't come home."

Sara frowns, takes a moment to digest his words. "Daniela's friend," she says, "do you know who she is?"

He gives a brisk nod. "That's why I was at the clinic last night but..." His voice trails off weakly and he lifts a helpless shoulder.

"She was having her baby last night, wasn't she?"Sara says, the puzzle finally coming together in her head as she remembers what Brass told her about the stakeout.

Matías looks away, gives a small nod.

Sara swallows. "Does she know what happened to Daniela?"

"She says she doesn't."

"But you don't believe her."

Matías slowly shakes his head in answer.

"Would you give us her name so we can talk with her?" Sara asks, "And maybe put a stop to what's happening?"

Fear is keeping Matías silent.

"Isn't that what Daniela wanted?" she tries again softly, "Maybe what she died for?"

Matías's gaze snaps up. He looks scared and conflicted, but eventually nods his head. He turns to look at the mirror and speaks directly to Brass on the other side. "I'll give you her name," he says, "as long as you promise to protect us."

Sara reaches for Matías's hand and squeezes it. "Thank you," she says and gives him a small smile. Then she glances at the mirror, stares at the spot where she knows Brass is standing and let her eyes, her heart, do the talking.

"He's put his trust in me," she tells him silently, defiantly, "Don't let him and me down."

**Fade to black.**

* * *

A/N: We're almost there now. Two, three chapters at the most until the end of the story. Thank you for reading and for your encouragement throughout. It's much needed and greatly appreciated.


	17. Chapter 17

**********************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 26:**

"You did well in there, Sara," Brass says as she comes out. "Really well."

"Yeah, well, he's a good kid." Her weariness returns, as does her anger at the world. "He was born on the wrong side of the border, that's all. The kids here, they don't know they've got it made." She sighs, shakes her head and makes to leave, then turns back round. "Look after him all right? And his family too. They deserve better than what they're getting." With another sad shake of the head she sets off down the corridor, headed out.

"Sara! Wait," Brass calls and catches up to her.

Sara stops in her tracks, but doesn't turn.

"I know you're angry with me, and you've every right to be. I get that I didn't do right by you." Brass pauses, blows out a deep breath. "But I need to know. Are you going to make contact?"

A wry smile twists her mouth as she turns to face him. "Why? So you can tell him? Give him warning so he has time to prepare and get used to the idea, like you did with me?"

Brass scoffs. "We've been over that, Sara," he says, showing his exasperation. "What do you want me to do? Apologise, again? Well, I'm sorry."

His gaze flicking to a passing officer, he stops talking and nods his head while Sara turns away to hide her growing emotion. Then he puts his hand in the small of her back and reluctantly she lets him guide her to the waiting room away from prying eyes and ears. They sit on adjacent chairs, Sara setting her field case to the floor by her feet. "That's the story of my life, isn't it?" he goes on quietly, almost rhetorically, and rubs his hand to the back of his head, "Making all the wrong choices and keep apologising for them – Nancy, Ellie, you – I can never get it right."

He pauses, seeks Sara's gaze, and never once raises his voice as he drives his point home. "But you know what, Sara? This time, I think I did. I did do right, or as right as I could in the circumstance. Gil needed me. He _needed_ me. More than you did me. At that moment in time, his wellbeing came first."

He brings a shaky hand to his mouth, breathes out deeply. The muscles in his jaw twitch with tension, with emotion. "He'd just killed someone, Sara. Can you even begin to imagine what that feels like? The hell he went through? Is still going through? And I'm not talking about the arrest and court case here, that was bad enough especially for someone like him, but the moral pain, the mental agony, the constant torment of knowing you have ended someone's life, an innocent person's life…well, that never leaves you." He taps his temple. "It stays there."

Feeling tears rise, Sara turns her face away. She knows Brass is referring to his accidental shooting of Officer Bell and of his subsequent struggle with coming to terms with what he had done, added to that of course Nancy's death and his worries over Ellie's future.

"I know you're hurting," Brass carries on, his voice gentle and compassionate, and pats his hand to her arm, "but he's hurting too."

Indignation flashes in Sara's eyes. "Not enough."

"What's happened to you, Sara?" he asks in a whisper. "Can't you see that what he did – however misguided it may appear – he did for you?"

Brass stares at her with disbelief, opens his hands in a helpless manner as if he's run out of argument and makes to leave, but then visibly thinking better of it reaches inside his pocket for his cell phone. He switches it on, angrily touches his finger to the screen and thrusts the cell at her.

"Do you think this was written by someone who doesn't hurt?" he asks heatedly, loud enough for a few heads to turn, before adding more sedately, "By someone who doesn't care?"

Sara takes the phone with trembling hands, reads Grissom's email, once, twice. Tears she tries her hardest to curb blur her eyes, spill down her cheeks. "So it was him?" she gasps, glancing up at Brass watching helplessly by, "calling the other night?"

Brass nods, and she wipes her finger over the screen again, rereads Grissom's message. Her disbelief turns to anger, Brass's betrayal all the more cutting now she sees the evidence for herself. All this time, all these long months, Brass kept Grissom updated behind her back. He lied to her, more than once, claiming he didn't know where Grissom was, claiming he hadn't heard from him.

He may think he made the right choice, the only choice, but she disagrees. Before he can react she taps and swipes her fingers to the screen a few times, scrolling up the page and forwarding Grissom's email and its sending address to herself.

"What are you doing?" he asks fearfully, and snatches the phone back.

Standing, she picks up her field case. "This way, if I choose to make contact I can do it directly."

**Fade to black. **

**********************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 27:**

"Meet Eddie, twenty-three years old._  
_Fed up with life and the way things are going,_  
_He decides to rob a liquor store."

A clean version of Guilty Conscience by Eminem is playing softly in the background. Other sounds are muffled as Sara walks trancelike and in slow motion down the corridor at PD, headed out. As she reaches the lobby, Nick and Vartann come in, a hand-cuffed Michael Dawson leading the way. She steps aside to let them pass. Michael is loud and argumentative, resisting Vartann's hold on him and protesting his innocence. Unfazed, both Nick and Vartann hold her gaze and give her nod as they walk past. Sara returns the nod, her eyes following Michael's progress to the booking in desk.

Immediately her thoughts turn to Grissom charged with a similar crime. She imagines him brought in like that, handcuffed and broken, waiting to be booked in, processed and interviewed before being led to a cell. Just like Michael, Grissom killed an innocent woman while driving recklessly. Just like Michael's, the rest of his life is ruined, wasted. But there stops the similarities. Because unlike Michael Grissom took responsibility for what he did, stopped to help the people he'd injured, showing so much guilt and remorse that he voluntarily sabotaged his own defence plea so as to serve what he felt was a suitable jail sentence.

Nick glances in her direction, frowns when he finds her staring, and turning away quickly she hurries out of the building before he can catch a glimpse of the inner turmoil she knows is written on her face. A car skids to a stop nearby and her attention turns to it. A woman jumps out of the passenger side, shouts something at the driver. She is frantic, and Sara instinctively knows the woman is Michael's mother.

Sara feels her heart clench as she sees herself in a similar situation, desperately rushing out of a car and running into a police station on hearing her husband has been arrested. Except none of that ever happened because she wasn't told, because she wasn't given the chance to be there for him, to support and love him. And that she can't understand. That she can't accept. They'd promise for better, for worse, and evidently those vows didn't mean as much to him as they did to her. Slowly, despairingly, she walks away and quickly crosses the parking lot over to her car. The music fades.

"Sara," she hears Nick call distantly as she beeps her car open, "Wait up!" She pauses, briefly contemplates ignoring him, but hearing his approaching footsteps quickly wipes at her face before she turns.

Nick's expression softens with a smile. "I didn't expect to see you here. You okay?"

She nods, avoids his gaze as much as she can. "A development in Daniela's murder case," she replies evasively. "So you finally got your guy?"

Nick smiles, turns toward PD. "Vartann's booking him as we speak. SOB gave us the runaround, but he's going down."

"That's good," she says, and then forcing a smile and herself to sound more enthusiastic, "Real good."

"Yeah, well. It won't bring Daisy's mother back."

Sara's smile disappears. "At least, she and her father can start to grieve now."

Nick gives an unconvinced nod. "You headed back to the lab?"

"I am. Want a lift back?"

"No. I…still need to process Michael and take a sample of his DNA. You busy after shift?"

Sara's eyes lower.

"No?" Nick prompts brightly before she can reply. "Well, that's great. Me either. So, how about breakfast? My shout?"

"Oh, I don't know."

"Cool. Seventy-thirty, it is. Usual place. Don't keep me waiting."

A wide smile breaking across his face, Nick winks at her and turning on his heels jogs back into the building. Sara drops her wan smile and turns back to her car, opens the trunk and swaps her field case for her purse she'd previously stowed there. She opens her car door, flings her purse on the passenger seat and climbs behind the wheel. She feels numb and listless, drained and devoid of energy.

_This time she picked up. She sounded so sad, so scared and lonely, so angry, _replays in her mind.

"Are you surprised?" she wants to scream at him, "When you disappeared without so much as a word of explanation? When you led me to believe that your work is more important than your life with me, than our love and marriage?"

_Just worried about Sara, how she's coping, _she hears now._ I thought it'd have got easier for her by now_.

Wearily she closes her eyes, lets her tears fall. Well, no, she thinks, it hasn't got easier. If anything it gets harder with every passing day. "If you were truly worried about me," she tells him now, "then you'd have spoken to me on the phone the other night, you'd have said something to ease my pain, _my_ worry. If you were truly worried, you'd have made contact with me long ago and told me the truth yourself. You say you're a coward, well, damn right you are."

Her eyes snap open. "Enough," she says, out loud this time. "Enough."

Angrily she wipes at her tears, scrambles inside her purse for her phone and with shaky hands deletes the message she just forwarded from Brass. Then she takes out the envelope with the letter she still hasn't read – a letter that has been sitting in Brass's office for close to a year and a half, a letter he clearly didn't want her to have or else he'd have sent it to her himself.

Totally dry-eyed and clear-minded, she stares at it for a long time before moving her fingers to the top and tearing the envelope and its content in half, and in half again, and again, until all she has left is the meagre scattering of their life together.

**Fade to black.**


	18. Chapter 18

******************************************************************************************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 28:**

"You're here," Nick exclaims, his surprise evident, as he slides onto the bench across from Sara.

Sara's lips twitch with a smile as she set down her menu. "Did I have a choice?"

"Of course you did," Nick says, and grins at her. "There's always a choice. It's whether you make the right one that counts." His smile widens mischievously. "And you, my friend, have."

Sara's smile is wide and affectionate. She's grateful for Nick's easy manner and undemanding friendship, for his quiet support. They both know she wouldn't have come if he hadn't persisted. And she's glad she has. The waitress comes to their table, lifts her coffee pot in Nick's eye line and pours him a cup when he gives the go-ahead. Her own cup is already cooling. Sara can feel Nick's gaze flicker from the waitress over to her and back again as silently she watches the waitress do her thing.

"Did you…think I wouldn't come?" Sara asks not-so-jokingly when the waitress is out of earshot.

"What? And leave me here all on my lonesome?" Nick picks up his menu, makes to peruse it. He shrugs. "I had my doubts. So, what are you having?" he asks in the same breath, looking up and snapping his menu shut.

"My usual," she says.

Nick chuckles. "Well, that makes two of us then." The waitress returns, pad in hand, and they order their food – a tall stack of pancakes with fruit for Sara and a half garbage plate with bacon and homemade toast for Nick.

"What?" Nick says in a chuckle when Sara raises her brow, and pats his paunch, "I'm watching my weight."

Laughing, Sara picks up her cup and blows on it before taking a careful sip. "I wanted to thank you again for," she looks up, puts the cup down, "you know, keeping a lid on…everything at the lab."

Nick nods, finishes drinking his mouthful. "You'd have done the same."

Sara smiles, nods her head. "Still. I―" She breaks off and shrugs her shoulder, "I appreciate it."

Putting his cup down, Nick watches her carefully before he speaks again. "You seem calmer than before, almost at peace with yourself."

"I am," she says, casually enough.

His brow rises. "Yeah?"

Sara gives his a smile and a nod. "Yeah."

"I'm glad to hear it."

Silence falls between them as they drink their coffee. Nick is recounting Michael Dawson's arrest when the waitress comes to their table with their plates. Both sit back while she sets them down, and wordlessly they start eating.

"So, huh, this new peace of mind," he asks enthusiastically as Sara cuts into her second pancake, "Does that mean you've booked time off already?"

Keeping her eyes averted to her plate, Sara shakes her head in reply. She puts down her knife and fork and looks up. Nick is watching her with a mixture of concern and affection. "I'm not going to go visit him, Nick."

His expression registers surprise. "No?"

Again she shakes her head, tries to stay matter-of-fact about her decision.

"Why not?" he queries lightly, curiously, and returns to his food. "I mean, I get that you're angry and everything. I would be too. But don't you want to hear his side?"

Thinking of Grissom's letter torn-up inside her purse, Sara stares off into the middle distance.

"I mean, it's up to you," Nick goes on as he eats, and Sara refocuses. "But don't you think you owe it to yourself to find out the truth? After all, you're still married, right? Maybe seeing him would be the closure you need, you know, in order to move on." He pauses, loads his fork again and brings it to his mouth. "If that's what you really want, of course," he adds with a pointed look.

Remaining silent, Sara picks up her knife and fork and slowly cuts into her pancake. Does she want to move on, she wonders suddenly? If she did, wouldn't she have done so already? Would a visit, a talk with Grissom bring her the closure she desperately needs?

"I…just couldn't do it," he says again.

"Couldn't do what?" she asks absently, looking up as she brings a forkful of pancake and fruit to her mouth.

Nick shrugs and stops eating. "Not go. I mean, I'd want to confront him, demand some answers, have it out with him…" he breaks off, flicks his gaze down to his plate uncomfortably and then back up again. "It's not good to keep everything bottled up like that, and you know I speak from experience." He pauses. "How do you truly feel about what's happened, huh?"

Sara lets out a long sigh as she ponders how honest to be with Nick. "I'm angry," she says at last, "and disappointed that he didn't tell me. I think that's the worst part – the fact that he didn't trust me enough to tell me. Worse than that, he lied to me. Did he think I wouldn't have stood by him? Did he think I would have loved him less for it?" She pushes through her growing emotion. "I feel betrayed, Nick, betrayed and lost. Gil is—was…" Unable to finish her train of thought, she brings a shaky hand to her mouth. "I—I just can't understand why he'd want to hide what happened from me – to the point of breaking up."

"I can," Nick says quietly, and gives her a sad smile. "It's the same as me not wanting people to know about me being taken. Pride and shame, Sara, that's the name of the game."

"I get that," Sara says heatedly, and checks her tone. "I totally get that. But I'm his wife, Nick, his _wife_. Not people. There's no pride between a husband and wife, there's no shame. I mean, you said it yourself. It could have happened to anyone of us. How often have we driven home and been so tired that we don't even remember doing so?"

"Well, maybe you need to go and tell him that. Maybe you need to be the bigger man, see the wider picture. Okay, he made a mistake in not telling you, but he's the one behind bars, Sara. He's the one paying dearly for his mistakes."

"I don't know, Nick. I don't know if I'm strong enough."

Nick gives her a warm smile. "I think you are, but it's up to you." His smile fades. "Does he know you know?"

She scoffs. "Only if Jim told him."

Nick's eyes widen. "So Jim knew?"

"Oh, he knew all right."

"I don't know what else to say, Sara," Nick says, and wipes the corner of his mouth with the paper napkin, "Except that I need to go to the bathroom. And urgently." Sara smiles and shakes her head, and Nick gets to his feet. "Don't go anywhere," he says.

Sara waits until he's turned the corner to reach for her purse and take her phone out. Once inside her email account, she opens the deleted messages folder and moves Grissom's email to Brass back to her inbox, reads it again. Maybe Nick is right, and she should make contact with him, let him know she knows and take it from there. But there's something she's got to do first.

"You okay?" Nick says, touching his hand to her shoulder as he returns.

Sara looks up, nods her head and puts her phone away before grabbing her bag and standing to leave.

"Something I said?" he asks, joking as he sits down again.

Sara smiles, and leaning down gives Nick a kiss on the cheek.

"What was that for?" he asks with a surprised grin.

She shrugs her shoulder. "Just for being a good friend and forcing me to have breakfast with you. You've given me a lot of clarity."

**Fade to black.**

**************************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 29:**

Sara clears her desk at home, rummages inside the drawer for her tweezers and finds a pair of white cotton gloves Grissom once used to study his bug specimens. She dons them, then takes out all the pieces of the letter out of her purse side pocket. The paper is cheap and thin and she knows she is going to have to be careful if she doesn't want the letter to rip even more.

Thankfully the torn-up letter is still encased in the torn-up envelope, and one by one she lays the pieces of the envelope out onto the desk until she stares at her name in its centre. If she thought his letter short and to the point she was mistaken because, as she uses the tweezers to delicately extricate the letter pieces out and neatly unfold them, she realises that Grissom wrote on both sides of the thin sheet and in very small script. She can imagine he had one shot at writing this.

Her eyes blur as a mixture of trepidation and excitement fill her, settling in her belly. As bit by bit she rebuilds the letter, she catches glimpses of words, isolated words and phrases that tug at her heart and make the breath catch in her throat. And yet she forces herself to wait until she has finished, until the painstaking task of taping it all together is finished, to read the letter properly and not guess at its content.

_Port Arthur, April 4__th__ 2013._

_My darling Sara,_

These three words are enough to get her pulse racing and her tears flowing again. All the love she feels for him, repressed and denied for so long, comes flooding back. Sara stops and draws in a deep, calming breath she lets out slowly before she brings her gaze back to the letter and stares at the top line, at his beautiful handwriting for the longest time before she can bring herself to read on.

_If you read this, it is because you've found out. I know you are mad at me – and with valid reasons. But please, don't take your anger and frustration out on Jim. He doesn't deserve it. He tried to talk me out of it, but I just couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to tell you and face your pain and disappointment, your shame. I couldn't face you sitting in the court room and watch me be convicted and sent to jail. I couldn't face you coming once a month to visit and see me locked up in this place. I couldn't stand to see the light fade from your eyes._

Sara sniffles and wipes at the tears coursing down her face.

_I am guilty of all charges. I killed that poor woman. Her death could have been prevented. I could have prevented it, and for that I will never forgive myself. The truth is I had drunk and I took the wheel. I went behind the wheel knowing that I had drunk. I blew .07, I know, just below the limit, but I should have known better. I know better. I was intoxicated and I killed a woman. End of. Now I have to learn to live with it._

_Know that I never once doubted that you'd stand by me. That you'd have got on the first flight and come to me. Not once. But I couldn't have you put your life on hold for me, for a mistake – _my_ mistake. And I know you would have done. I also know the love we feel for each other is strong, one of its kind, one I never dreamed I'd find, one that I know will carry me through the tough times ahead, the long and lonely months until I've served my time. It's this love that will keep me sane and from despair, this love and the memories of our life together that will see me through the sleepless nights that I know await me. _

Her trembling hands and tears make reading the letter difficult. She stops and takes in another deep, fraught breath, and again wipes at her eyes before turning the letter over.

_You're my wife and I love you dearly – always will, and I know you deserve better. You deserve to have been told the truth and be treated with more respect than what I have shown you. I know how worried you must have been, how hurt and betrayed you must have felt when I disappeared without a word. We promised for better for worse and I have reneged on our vows – on _my_ vows. Vows I still hold dearest. _

_Know that my reasons for not telling you aren't all selfish ones. You're in law-enforcement, Sara. You know what it's like. Your friends and colleagues, some ours, others you met after I left, think highly of you. I wouldn't want that to change because of something I have done. The lab gossip itself would have been untenable. And it would have come out, Sara, you know it would have. And then not even work would have been a haven for you. _

"I'd have coped," she whispers, in a half-strangled gasp.

_Please forgive me. Of all the decisions I've had to make in my life this has been by far the hardest. Know that I am sorry for what I have done, for what I know I have put you through. Believe me when I tell you that it was the only way. Seeing the guilt and deep shame I feel reflected in your eyes would have been more than I could have withstood. _

_I made a mistake, one I pay for dearly every minute of every day. Losing my freedom is nothing compared to losing your love. But it is my penance, and I accept it. Please, don't come to visit me, if not for your sake then for mine. When it is time, when I've done my sentence, and not enough of it in my opinion, I'll come home and pray that you'll have me back. _

_With all my love, always,_

_Gil._

Sara stares at the letter for the longest of time before she turns it over and reads it again. She is feeling calmer now, less angry, for reading his words, his explanation, not because she's at peace with the way he's treated her, but because she can begin to understand his reasons for acting the way he did. She turns the letter over again, then sets it down on the desk and bows her head. Taking in a deep breath, she closes her eyes.

_Please forgive me_, he asks, the words echoing hauntingly in her mind. With a sigh, she stands and pads to the bedroom, pulls the cover off the bed and without getting undressed lays down on it. Her eyes are wide open as she stares at the ceiling, her thoughts in turmoil.

Does she have it in her to forgive him?

**Fade to black.**


	19. Chapter 19

**********************************************************************************************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 30:**

Sara is striding down the corridor at CSI, her cell phone against her ear. She's looking fed up and impatient. The phone rings, once, twice, three times before the call gets diverted to voicemail. She sighs, feels a heaviness in her heart as she wonders whether Brass is deliberately avoiding her.

"This is Jim Brass," Brass's voice tells her, "I'm not able to take your call so leave a message and I'll get back to you."

"Jim?" she says after the tone, as she walks, "Sara again. Call me back? It's…important." She lowers the cell from her ear and is about to disconnect the call when she thinks better of it and adds, "Please?"

She ends the call, pockets her cell and stops at DB's office open door. DB is sat at his desk, hunched over a stack of files. She hesitates, then taking a steadying breath quietly raps her knuckle on his door.

"I said I'd be over in a minute," DB says tersely, and looks up, his frown quickly morphing into an easy smile when he sees Sara standing there. "Sorry, I thought you were Hodges." He pauses, his expression suddenly clouding with concern. "You okay?"

She nods and forces a smile as she steps into his office. She takes a breath. "Is this a good time?"

DB puts his pen down, removes his glasses to rub at his eyes. "Sure," he says, slipping his glasses back on and refocusing. "It's always a good time." His smile widens mischievously. "For you anyway. So what can I do?"

Sara hesitates, but only briefly. "It's about taking that time off you were talking about."

DB's face registers a look of surprise he quickly covers. "Sure," he replies casually enough. "When were you thinking?"

"Week after next?"

DB's brow rises. "Your mother's in a hurry to get going, is she?"

Sara's frown is deep. "Sorry?"

DB opens his hand, waves it about. "You know. The trip up the 101 you two have been planning. You told me about it the other day."

Realisation dawns, and she smiles. "Oh. No. It's not that. It's…" Sara stops herself before she can blurt the real reason behind her request. She can't bear the thought of having to explain, of admitting that all this time Grissom was locked up in a Texas prison and she didn't know. She didn't know because, he, her husband, didn't think she should know. And what if nothing comes of the visit anyway? What then? She lifts her shoulder, feigning as casual an exterior as she can muster. "It's just…some me time. I just need a break from it all. A few days."

His gaze never leaving her, DB leans back in his seat and Sara looks away, suddenly uncomfortable under his scrutiny. "Take a seat, please, Sara, will you?" His voice is soft and concerned.

Sara lets out a long sigh, but moves forward nevertheless and sits down across from him. "I am tired, DB," she answers to the silent question in her boss's eyes. "You're right about that."

DB gives a compassionate nod. "Do you need this time off sooner? I mean, I can rejiggle next week's schedule if you want. It's no problem."

"No," she says emphatically, "The week after next is fine. I have a court appearance scheduled for next week anyway."

DB nods. "Okay."

"Nick said he'd cover for me if you need him to, and…"

DB lifts his hand, cutting her short. "Don't worry about it. It's okay. We'll manage. How long do you think you'll need?"

She averts her eyes, shrugs her shoulder. "A week?" After a pause, she brings her gaze back up, "Two maybe?"

Again DB nods his head, then gives her a warm smile. His gaze is intent, quietly probing, the message in his eyes clear, "I'm here if you need to talk." And just like with Nick, she is grateful for his support and friendship and can't help thinking that maybe Grissom had a point in wanting to keep CSI a haven for her.

"You're doing the right thing," DB says at last, and she refocuses. There is clarity and understanding in his eyes now, and she knows he's guessed that Grissom is behind her request. "Just let me know if you need that second week and I'll arrange it."

**Fade to black.**

**********************************************************************************************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 31:**

Sara pulls the crime scene truck up in front of a blue Mazda 3, looks over at Greg riding shotgun and kills the engine. An ambulance is parked at the curb on the opposite side of the road, its back doors shutting before its lights are switched on and it drives away. Wordlessly she and Greg get out, grab their field cases from the trunk and make their way over to the house.

A woman carrying an infant car seat comes out of the house where the raid took place and ducks under the crime scene tape, headed in their direction. Sara can smell child services a mile away. The sleeping baby is very small and well-wrapped up. The pink cotton hat tells Sara it's a girl. The female welfare officer sets the car seat down on the sidewalk and unlocks the Mazda. At least one baby got rescued, Sara thinks despondently.

Brass and Dempsey come out of the house, a SWAT officer following on their heels. Brass glances round when Greg and Sara reach the crime scene tape, speaks to his two colleagues, then strides over to them, still seemingly buoyed up on adrenaline from the bust. He pulls at the Velcro straps from the LVPD-issued bulletproof vest he's wearing and slips it off.

"Thanks for coming so soon," he says breathlessly. "We got three in custody headed to PD now, one on the way to Desert Palms, and another one lying dead in the kitchen. Marisa," Brass adds, turning toward Sara, "That's Daniela's friend, the one who had the baby last week, well, she's come forward with some good intel and we had to act quickly."

"That, her baby?" she asks, nodding at the child welfare officer pulling away.

Brass follows the Mazda's departure with his eyes. "We're not sure. The officer's taking the baby to Desert Palms, she'll have some tests run on her. But she looks healthy enough, the baby, I mean." Brass gives a rare smile. "She sounded it anyway." His expression darkens again. "We might never find who killed Daniela, but maybe we can help put a stop to the trafficking."

Sara nods. She doesn't like to think they'll never catch Daniela's killer, but even if they only return that one baby to its mother then her death won't have been in vain.

"Sanders, you mind if I have a word with Sara?" Brass asks, and Sara refocuses.

"Sure," Greg answers uncertainly, glancing over at Sara, "I'll make a start on overalls."

"Thanks, Greg."

"I'm sorry I've not returned your call," Brass says when Greg is out of earshot. He motions to the house and shrugs his shoulder. "I've been busy."

Sara pauses. "I―I wanted to ask you if…you'd contacted Gil and told him that…" her shoulder lifts, "that I know."

Brass turns away from the house and shakes his head. "I haven't told him. And I won't. This one's between the two of you. I'm not getting stuck in the middle again."

Sara gives a weak smile, nods her head. "Thank you." Movement behind them catches Brass's attention and Sara knows she hasn't long to speak her mind before they'll both need to get back to work. "Listen, Jim," she says, and he turns back to her. "I―I wanted to…apologise. Well, I took my anger out on you when really it's directed at Gil. This whole thing, it's just knocked me sideways, that's all."

Brass opens his mouth to interrupt, but Sara raises her hand, silencing him. "I know what you're going to say. And I get it now." She pauses, raises a shoulder. "I also want you to know that despite everything I may have said to you, well, I'm glad you were there for him when I couldn't be."

Brass gives a nod that says, "Apology accepted."

"Sara?" Greg calls from inside the house.

Sara looks over her shoulder. "I'm coming," she says, and makes to leave but Brass's hand on her arm holds her back.

"Sara, I need to know," Brass says. "What are you going to do?"

**Fade to black.**

**********************************************************************************************************************************************Fade in.**_  
_**SCENE 32:**

It's daytime. A United Airlines Boeing 737 takes off, soaring up steeply into the hazy sky, the familiar Las Vegas outline of Casinos and hotel complexes nearby gradually receding in the distance. Sara sits inside McCarran Airport clasping her purse to herself, waiting. A black carry-on case sits upright by her feet. Her brow is pinched, her gaze unfocused as she stares unseeingly in front of her.

People rush all around her. An announcement plays in the background, muted, unclear. Her thoughts are as in turmoil as they were two weeks previously when she read his note for the first time. What if she is making a mistake in going to him, she wonders again? What if he refuses to see her, speak with her? Should she wait another year until he's out, as he bids her to?

With a weary sigh, she refocuses and turns to her left, toward the main body of the airport and the exit. She's walked away from him once before, walked away from their love and life together, and regretted it. She thought she was doing the right thing then, the right thing for both of them. Just like he thought he was doing, she realises, when he decided to hide the truth of what happened from her.

He'd left his life behind to come to her then. He made a decision, a decision that changed the course of his life – the course of their life. For the better. Now the roles are reversed. Does he need her to go to him, as much as she had needed him come to her then? She'd like to think so, despite his words professing to the contrary. Her going to him is something he clearly doesn't want, and yet she now knows she has no choice.

She opens her purse, moves her boarding pass and passport aside and reaches inside the purse's inner pocket for the black velvet pouch that holds her wedding band. With shaky hands she loosens the drawstring, shakes the gold band out into her palm and stares at it. Stares at it until her vision blurs and her mind takes her back to the day Grissom had slipped it on her finger. She'd been so happy then, so carefree and complete. They both had.

"For better, for worse," echoes in her mind.

He may have reneged on his vows, but she hasn't. Blinking at the tears in her eyes, she slips the ring back on her finger. When she looks up, there is determination in her gaze, fortitude and resolve too. She owes it to herself, to their love and marriage, to at least try. He made a mistake, one he's paying for dearly, one he should never have kept from her. She still feels angry and disappointed, betrayed and deceived, and nowhere near ready to forgive him, but her love for him is still as strong as ever, as strong as it was on their wedding day. The long months apart with no contact have done nothing to diminish it.

"For better, for worse," she says out loud, and standing up grabs her carry-on before purposefully making her way to the gate.

**Fade to black.**


	20. Chapter 20

******************Fade in.**_  
_**CLOSING SCENE:**

Aerial shot of Beaumont federal correctional complex that narrows in on its medium security facility then onto its exercise yard before closing in on an armed guard standing by the basketball court. The game is still going strong in the background, the players' voices loud and sharp, commanding. The guard is looking into the sun at a point at eye level just off-screen.

The camera angle changes to reveal the shadow of a man down by the guard's feet, its distorted and moving image that of a man boxing. The players' voices fade, replaced by the quiet grunting and muffled sounds of glove hitting padding mirroring the moves made by the shadow. The guard motions with his head, and after a beat the boxing sounds fade then stop altogether replaced by heavy breathing. The shadow changes shape as the man straightens, then turns to face the guard.

"Grissom," the guard says, "visitor for you."

Action cuts to inside the building and to Sara in the visitors' waiting room. Her head is bowed as she sits on the same hard plastic chair as before. She glances at her watch and sighs. She's been there nearly an hour. They all have. The wait is excruciating, and she wonders at the delay. At any moment she expects a guard to walk up to her and tell her she's come all this way for nothing, that Grissom won't be seeing her.

Sara's anger flares at the unfairness of it all. Why should he be the one to make all the choices? Hasn't she got a say in any of it? A woman strides up to the armed guard by the door, demands to know what is taking so long, gets told it won't be much longer. Sara sighs. She feels like cattle in a crowded holding pen, waiting to be let out into the open. Except she won't be. Quite the opposite in fact.

She looks down at her hands and makes them into fists to stop the tremor. The lump is still firmly lodged in her throat, refusing to budge. She blows out a long breath to calm her nerves and touches her fingers to her wedding band, takes comfort from the simple and instinctive gesture. Even after she'd removed it, she'd often find herself rubbing the spot on her finger where it should have remained.

Is he still wearing his, she wonders suddenly? She hopes so with all her heart.

She wrote him a letter – last night in her hotel room when she couldn't sleep. She drove out to an all-night drugstore, bought some writing paper and wrote him a long and heartfelt letter. She poured everything out in the letter, all her grief and heartache, all her pain and hurt at his deception, all her love too. Everything, so that if he refuses to see her she can leave it with the guards and he'll still know.

Of course, she can't make him read it. It may take a few days or even weeks, but she knows that eventually the temptation would be too great and that in a moment of weakness he'd open and read it. But she wouldn't get to see him, or get any of the answers she so desperately needs. There is so much she wants to ask him, so much she needs to know, so much she wants to tell him, face to face and not in a goddamn letter.

Electronic locks buzz and turn suddenly, startling Sara out of her thoughts. A heavy metal door slides open, and two guards enter, both wearing the same tired expressions. They have a word with the guard at the door. The crowd hushes at once and moves as one, silently gathering into an orderly line in front of the doorway. They've done this before, Sara realises. She hasn't.

Numbly, she joins the line, self-consciously straightens her clothes, clothes she picked carefully as per prison rules, and follows hesitantly behind as the women file into the large and brightly lit and very impersonal visitors' room next door. Brass arranged through the warden's office for her to have an extended visitation, and if once put on the spot Grissom agrees they could have up to a couple of hours together. She'd be glad just to see him.

She expected long rows of tables with Plexiglas separating the inmates from their visitors, but instead is met by an open-plan room with individual tables and chairs. Automatically she makes to clutch her purse tighter to her, but she left it in a locker when she signed in, so instead she wraps her arms around herself and moves to a table as instructed. She isn't sure whether to sit down, but everybody else does and she follows suit.

When everybody is settled and waiting, electronic locks buzz and turn again, opening a different door. Sara's head snaps up toward the sound. She swallows. A heavy metal door slides open, a first guard entering followed by a line of prisoners all wearing institution-issued khakis. The men enter the room one after the other in an orderly fashion. Faces light up, the line quietly dispersing as each inmate makes their way to their loved ones waiting with smiling faces.

The camera cuts back to Sara sitting dead straight at her table, her eyes fixed on the doorway. All noises and sounds fade into the background. Her heart has stopped beating as she waits with bated breath for her husband to come through the door. She isn't smiling. She wishes she could, but she hasn't got it in her. As it is, it takes all her strength and concentration to keep a straight face and a lid on her emotion.

Tears fill her eyes suddenly. The camera zooms in on her face, on the myriad of emotions reflected on it as Grissom seemingly enters the room. She brings a shaky hand to her mouth, briefly closes her eyes as a surge of relief washes over her. Then her hand lowers, the ghost of a smile breaking through her heartache as presumably he sees her.

Sara's face still fills the screen. She stares intently, we can only guess deep into his eyes, searching beyond his imaginable disbelief and shock at seeing her again, for the man she loves and, she knows, loves her. All his grief and heartache, all his pain and hurt, is plain to see. He looks the same and yet different, slimmer and broader somehow under his uniform, with his hair whiter and cropped shorter than she's ever seen it.

He walks with a slight limp, and she wonders whether it's his knee hurting as it is prone to do, or whether it is the remnant of the injuries he sustained during the crash. He is a broken man, and she hopes her visiting him will give him strength rather than be a mistake she will regret. She knows she has to stay strong, at least in front of him. If she can't stay strong for him, then he'll have been right to think she couldn't cope. And the last thing she wants to do is make his mental load greater.

Gaze locked, she stands and makes to go to him, but one of the guards moves toward her and shakes his head. Sara swallows, nods her head and dutifully sits back down. The camera tracks Sara's watery eyes as she watches Grissom come forward, closer and closer until her eyes lower and we hear that scraping sound of a chair being pulled against the hard floor.

Sara swallows hard, again. All her questions, all her words of recrimination and anger vanish out of her mind. She just wants to touch him, make sure that he's real and not a figment of her imagination. The film of tears in his eyes, the slight quiver of his bottom lip as he takes a sharp breath, tell her all she needs to know about his state of mind. She was right to come.

The camera pans out to show a side view of Sara sitting at the table. She lifts her hand off her lap to the table top and, her eyes still fixed on the man sitting across from her, slowly, hesitantly, slides it toward him. Her gaze suddenly flicks down to the hand coming to meet hers just off-screen, locks to the wedding band shining under the harsh artificial lights. The rush of love through her body is intense, all-encompassing, and she knows that no matter what they will prevail.

"For better, for worse," she says in a fraught whisper and looks up, as finally their fingers touch.

**********************Fade to black.************_  
_************************Roll end credits.**_  
_**End of episode.**

* * *

A/N: Thank you so much, those of you who have persevered and read till the very end and left reviews along the way. It's been a hard and very frustrating story to write for very obvious reasons, but I'm glad I took up the challenge. It's given me a new perspective as to how difficult it is to write a 45-minute episode – in this case a much extended one – especially in the good old days of two case files per episode. No wonder the personal interaction between the characters was so brief and interspersed!

I appreciate that this ending leaves a lot to be desired, but it's the 'happiest' ending I could write in the circumstance without breaking the rules. I know I come close, but Grissom never actually appears on-screen. We just 'see' him through Sara's eyes. Now if this was a real episode and TPTB had left us with this second-rate ending, I'd be the first to want to right their wrongs. So, the question is: do we want a sequel to this story, or is it best left as it is?

You tell me.

Until the next time, take care!


End file.
